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THE 



SCIENCE OF THOUGHT 



BY • 

V 
CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT, D.D. 

BUSSEY PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR OP " POETRY, COMEDY AND DUTY," " FICHTE'S 
SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE," ETC. 



REVISED EDITION 






BOSTON v<^ 
DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO. 

365 Washington Street 

\ 






x. 



Copyright, 1890, 
By De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 

Typographers and Electrotypers, 

145 High Street, Boston. 






PLAN AND CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Dedication m 

Preface to Revised Edition, vn 

Preface, IX 

Introduction. — Thought and Logic in General, 1 

FIRST BOOK. 

ABSTRACT MATERIAL AND RELATIONS OF THOUGHT, OR CATEGORIES, 25 

First. — Positive (Static Relations), 27 

A. — Quality, 27 

B. — Quantity, 32 

C — Limit, 3G 

Second. — Negative (Dynamic Relations), 40 

A. — The Negative Relation of an Object or a Quality to Itself 

(Change), 40 

B. — Negative Relation of an Object or a Quality to Others (Cause 

and Effect), 44 

Third. — Negation of Negation (Organic Relations), . '. 52 

A. — Final Cause, 54 

B. — Differentiation, 55 

C — Integration, 57 

Conclusion, 59 

SECOND BOOK. 

FORMS OF THOUGHT AS EMBODIED IN LOGICAL FORMS, 61 

First. — Conception and Terms (Logic of Language), .... 03 

Second. — Judgments and Propositions, 93 

A. — Propositions of Identity (Logic of Mathematics), ... 98 

B. — Unequal Propositions, 105 

a. — Propositions of Perception, 110 

b. — Propositions of the Understanding, 115 

1st class — of Generalization, . 115 

2d class — of Classification, . 124 

c. — Propositions of the Reason, 137 

1st class — of Truth 137 

2d class — of Goodness, 143 

3d class — of Beauty, 153 

C. — Mediated Propositions, 164 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAG* 

Third. — Proof and Syllogisms, 16« 

First Form of Syllogism (Deduction), ,169 

A. — Deduction based upon Propositions of the Reason ( The Omercr' 

Relations of these, — a priori Theology), 17f 

a. — Deduction from the First Proposition of the Reason, name!]-, 

of Truth. (Logic of Philosophy), 18f 

b. — Deduction from the Second Proposition of the Reason, 

namely, of Goodness (Logic of Ethics), 20P 

c. — Deduction from the Third Proposition of the Reason, namely, 

of Beauty (Logic of Aesthetics), . . . . . . 2& 

Conclusion, 23; 

B,— Deduction from Propositions of the Understanding, 23i 

a. — Static 238 

b. — Dynamic 239 

c — Organic, 246 

C. — Deduction from Mixed Propositions (Hypothesis), ... 247 

a. — Static, 251 

b. — Dynamic, 253 

c. — Organic (Final Cause), . 258 

Secoud Form of Syllogism (Analogy and Induction), .... 267 

A. — Analogy, . . 274 

B. — Induction, 295 

a. — Static, 295 

b. — Dynamic, 305 

a. — Empiric, 305 

6. — Rational, 317 

c— Organic (Final Cause), ........ 329 

Conclusion of Induction, 355 

Third Form of Syllogism (Identification), 357 

Conclusion of Syllogisms, 302 

Conclusion of Logical Forms, 363 

THIRD BOOK. 

THE PROBLEMS AND LIMITS OF THOUGHT, 373 

First. — The Problems of the Reason or of Philosophy, .... 373 

A. — Subjective and Objective, 373 

B. — Infinite and Finite, 386 

a. — Static (Infinite Being), .388 

b. — Dynamic (Infinite Force), 398 

c — Organic (The Absolute), 402 

C. — Inner and Outer, 405 

Second. — Problems of the Understanding or of Science, . . . 413 
Third. — Problems of the Reason and Understanding united in Concrete 

Forms, or of Life, 420 

APPENDIX. 

I.— The Proposition 427 

XI— The Syllogism 428 



PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. 



In the successive imprints of this book that have 
appeared since it was first published in 1869, no 
changes have been made except the correction of 
typographical and similar errors. In the present 
edition several alterations have been made, both in 
the way of addition and omission. So far as the 
form is concerned, the book is still in some respects 
different, perhaps for the better, from what it would 
be if it were a work freshly prepared by the author. 
The fundamental principles which it represents ap- 
pear to me, however, no less true, and more impor- 
tant, than they did when it was first written. I still 
think that Hegel's analysis of logical forms is 
the only one which represents their true nature ; 
while the philosophy, if it may be so called, which, 
in the book, underlies the treatment of the processes 
)f thought, has furnished the lines which my own 
nore serious work has ever since followed. 

C. C. EVERETT. 
Harvard University, March, 1890. 



PREFACE 



It is the aim of this work to consider thought as a 
realitjr, to approach it as any work of true science ap- 
proaches its material. It first discusses the relations that 
make up the substance of actual thought. It then ana- 
lyzes thought into its elements, and follows it into its 
fundamental divisions. It shows the methods of each of 
these, the kind of argument, and the degree of certainty of 
which it admits, its dangers and its safeguards, and how 
all of these divisions are the parts of a common whole. 
And, finally, it considers thought in its completeness. It 
seeks to determine its limits and its scope, and to that 
end it considers some of the actual problems with which 
thought has to contend, so far as the possibility of their 
solution depends upon or illustrates the nature and limits 
of thought itself. Such is at least the plan of the present 
work ; and without regard to the success or failure of its 
execution, such, I am confident, must be, in general, the 
plan of anjr true system of logic ; or, if the true meaning 
and use of this term should be made a matter of dispute, 
such must be, in general, the plan and scope of any work 
that shall treat thought as an object of scientific study. 

There was never a period when such a study was more 
important than it is at present, because there was never 
a time when thought was so wide-spread and so far-reach- 
ing. The mind of the people no longer contents itself 



X PREFACE. 

with following its old guides. It is feeling its own way. 
It is seeking, honestly and anxiously, to distinguish the 
true and the false. Then, too, there was never a time 
when opposite systems of thought so asserted each its 
absolute supremacy. Systems of religion, systems of 
morals, of politics, of philosophy, place themselves over 
against each other, each denying to the other any ground 
on which it may stand. Science on the one side, and 
religion or philosophy on the other, stand thus in antag- 
onism. Nothing is jnore needed than an attempt to 
expose the nature and real processes of thought, and 
while recognizing each of these elements to remand each 
back to its place as a member of the common whole. 
Although the survey of this field makes me feel more than 
ever the imperfection of the present undertaking, it makes 
me feel, also, that no such attempt, honestly and earnestly 
made, can be altogether in vain. 

I have called this work " The Science of Thought," be- 
cause its scope is somewhat broader and its analysis of 
forms less detailed than might be expected in a treatise on 
Logic. The term Logic is, however, assuming a larger 
significance than it once possessed. The principles of 
thought no less than logical forms are receiving profound 
attention. The scholastic logic did not treat of thought 
as a reality. It discussed certain abstract relations under 
wdiich thought is possible. They discuss some of the pre- 
liminaries of thought. It is as if a writer on entomology 
should content himself, first, with showing that each 
insect must consist of three parts, namely, the head, the 
thorax, and the abdomen, and then with discussing the 
manner in which these parts should be related. It could 
be shown how either might be in the middle ; but that 
there could be a true insect only when the thorax was 
between the head and the abdomen. I suppose that these 
matters, and what might be suggested by them, could be 



PREFACE. XI 

discussed through volumes. The stuuent coald be trained 
to draw fancy pictures of possible insects with the thorax 
properly in the middle. But whether there was ever a 
real insect like one of these, or what to call a real insect 
when he saw it, or what are the shapes and habits of the 
real insect world, of all this he would know nothing. 

This is not a caricature, but an illustration of the con- 
nection which logic has been supposed to have with 
thought. It has been claimed by logicians that they had 
nothing to do with the reality or the reliability of thought. 
They have undertaken to furnish help neither in regard 
to the basis of thoughts and arguments, nor in regard to 
the proof to be sought in their support. If an argument 
were formally correct, they, as logicians, could seek no 
further. I would not dispute the importance of this for- 
mal training, but I conceive that it is only the threshold 
to the real topics with which logic has to do ; or, if any 
would restrict the use of this word, it is certainly only the 
threshold to the science of thought. 

But though in the prosecution of this work thought as 
a reality became the matter of leading interest, my first 
attraction to it was from the formal side. First in the 
lectures of Prof. G-abler, a disciple of Hegel, at Berlin, 
and afterwards in the works of Hegel himself, I found the 
rudiments of a system of logic that charmed me by its 
beauty and simplicity. The logic of Hegel is in general 
very little like anything that we are in the habit of associ- 
ating with the name. We should rather call it meta- 
physics than logic. A few pages are, however, given to 
" subjective' logic ; " that is, to what we should call logic 
itself. These pages of course contain only the most ab- 
stract statements in regard to the nature and relations of 
propositions, syllogisms, etc., but these furnish the germ 
of an entirely fresh treatment and working of the whole 
field. 



XII PKEFACE. 

Pel haps the greatest objection to the scholastic logic is 
not that it undertakes to do so little, but that it does the 
little that it undertakes so poorly. With its excess of 
formalism it is destitute of form. You inquire, for in- 
stance, how many kinds or figures of syllogism there are, 
and are told that, according to the arrangement adopted, 
there should be four, but that really there are but three ; 
the fourth being needed to complete the plan, but not oth- 
erwise. What is this but a confession that the system of 
classification is a wrong one ; that it misses the real nature 
of the syllogism ; in other words, that it is not natural, but 
arbitrary. Further, three of these four figures are of com- 
paratively little use except as they may be converted into 
the first. But in the Hegelian system, there are and can 
be only three forms or figures of the sj^llogism. The sys- 
tem of arrangement as well as the facts of the case require 
this. Moreover, these three are bound together in the 
closest and most necessary union. Each is needed for 
the completion of any common argument. Each supports 
the other, and the three together form a triple cord that 
cannot be broken. Further, in this system, the syllogism, 
the proposition, >and the term form also the elements of 
one complete organization ; and one principle is the foun- 
dation of all. 

It was this beautiful and simple arrangement that first 
made the word logic an attractive one to me, and in this 
work this plan has been adopted. 

In the union of these two elements, of substance and 
form, it has been my aim to attain the maximum of form 
and the minimum of formalism. While one principle of 
division and arrangement has been followed throughout, 
whatever is merely formal has been, so far as possible, 
treated in separate sections ; and the reader has been often 
left to apply for himself these formal distinctions, and 
especially the formal terminology to the material that fol- 



PREFACE. xni 

lows. It has further been my aim, so far as possible, to 
dispense with purely technical words. When these could 
not be avoided they have been kept, as just intimated, so 
far as possible in the background. In other words, I have 
endeavored to follow the plan of nature, by which the 
form is an internal impulse rather than an outward re- 
straint. In accordance with this principle, while each 
topic has been treated in correspondence with, and in sub- 
jection to, the whole, yet each has been treated, so far as 
possible, as if it stood alone. 

I have already stated that the formal arrangement of 
sjdlogisms, etc., is adopted from Hegel. In accordance 
with this arrangement the relative position of the second 
and third figure has been reversed. Besides this, an occa- 
sional truth or statement has been taken from him. This 
is especially true of the earlier part of the first book. In 
the discussion of the logical relations of language, under 
the head terms, I have been very largely indebted to 
Becker's "Organismus cler Sprache," a work that is most 
valuable as giving a logical analysis of language, and to 
which the reader who would pursue this branch of the study 
is referred. It is a work, however, that any one, not ac- 
quainted with the later philological results, should read 
with great caution, and only with the accompaniment of 
some such work as Muller's " Science of Language," or 
Whitney's "Lectures on Language.' 1 I have, in various 
parts of this work, made frequent reference to Schopen- 
hauer, the most brilliant of metaphysicians, the clearest 
and most satisfactory, for the most part, in his details ; 
the most unsatisfactory in his grand results ; whose sys- 
tem, with its sad centre of pessimism, is like a rich and 
tempting fruit, fair without, but rotten at its heart. To 
this writer I have been indebted perhaps more than to any 
other, except Hegel. 

The logic of Mr. Mill forms an exception to the general 



XIV PREFACE. 

works upon the subject. It regards logic as having to 
do with real thought, and not merely with the forms of 
thought. It is everywhere of value, and in particular in 
what relates to induction it furnishes material that must 
be adopted into every discussion of the subject. It is, 
however, based upon what appears to me a very imperfect 
sj^stem of philosophy, and adopts an unsatisfactory sys- 
tem of logical forms. I make this reference to it here, 
lest from some incidental allusions to it in the body of 
the work, where its arguments occurred to me as the best 
examples of the views I worJJ oppose, I might seem 
insensible to its great worth. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THOUGHT AND LOGIC IN GENERAL 



THOUGHT AND LOGIC IN GENERAL 



3^X< 



The technical name of the science of thought is 
logic. The word is derived from an adjective formed 
from the Greek substantive Myog. The meaning of 
this substantive is, on the one side, "reason" or 
"thought," and on the other side the "word," which 
is the manifestation of thought. Its central meaning 
would therefore seem to be, "thought in its manifes- 
tation." It is the nature of thought to manifest 
itself. It is not lifeless like the stone ; it is germi- 
nant. It cannot be repressed or hidden. Not merely 
does it develop itself according to the laws of its own 
nature, that is, as thought; like the sprouting seed, 
it shows itself above the soil in which it springs. 
Words and acts are its inevitable expression. Thought 
runs through all the framework of our outward life, 
as the nerves run through the body, forming a sepa- 
rate system, yet giving life to all. 

We may perhaps better understand the meaning of 
the word logic, by remembering that the termination 
which marks the names of many of the separate 
sciences is derived from the same root as itself. We 
speak of theology, of geology, and of so many other 
" ologies. " The word logic is the 'logy without the 



THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



, 



limiting or determining prefix. It is the pure scienc 
abstracted from the different sciences. It is thus the 
science of sciences. If the science of stones, of 
animals, and the like, is important and interesting, 
what place shall we assign to that science which is the 
science of thought itself? Any particular science is 
the reducing or elevating the objects of which it treats 
to the relations of thought. We can only see the 
stones by the wayside. By the help of mineralogy 
we think them. 

The science of logic includes the basis or starting- 
point, the laws and the limits of thought. It has to 
follow the fundamental divisions of thought itself. 
It has thus to analyze the fundamental ideas from 
which thought springs, and the special methods that 
belong to the different divisions of thought. We say, 
for instance, " Such a picture is beautiful ; " " Such 
plants are poisonous ; " " Such an act is noble." Logic 
should not only furnish the means of determining 
whether such statements are formally correct, it should 
also furnish means of determining whether they are 
actually true ; that is, it should have such classifica- 
tions of thought, that one could tell to which class 
any one statement belongs, and what is the sort of 
proof of which that class is susceptible. These 
divisions, as ail other logical forms, should be seen 
to spring from the very nature of thought itself. 
These forms should not be " Spanish boots " to torture 
thought, they should be the very body and limbs of 
it. There should be one pulse-beat through the whole. 
Such is the high standard which the present work 
sets before itself. If it falls short, this will none 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 5 

*e less continue to be the true plan and scope of 
logic. 

The science of sciences does not include of course 
all sciences and philosophy, but it contains the prin- 
ciple out of which these spring. This is the trunk, 
they are the branches. At least the knots must mark 
where the leading divisions of our thought begin. 

While logic stands in this relation to the other 
sciences and to philosophy, it stands in an intermedi- 
ate relation to psychology. Psychology is like the 
rest, a science springing from thought, a special appli- 
cation of the laws of thought ; but thought is also oue 
faculty of the soul, and thus the science of thought 
is a part of psychology. The division in all these 
cases must be a little arbitrary, like all divisions. 
Who shall say just where the branch of a tree ceases 
to be the trunk, or how much of crystallography should 
be included in any general treatise on chemistry? 
For all practical purposes, however, the lines are 
sufficiently defined. Individual judgment must deter- 
mine how far to go in any direction, for the sake of 
completeness or illustration. 

If logic contains the formulas and the fundamental 
principles of all the sciences, it must also contain 
those of the facts and objects to which the sciences 
refer. A science is true only as it hits upon and fol- 
lows out the actual relations of the materials which 
come within its cognizance. The principles of the 
science, if it be true, must be one with the princi- 
ples of its material. The two must cover each other. 
The artificial system of botany was imperfect, because 
its divisions did not fall in with the divisions of nature- 



G THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The natural system claims to follow and to cover the 
actual divisions in the outer world. What is true of 
the principles of any science must be true of the 
principles of thought. The principles of thought 
must be the principles of that which is the object of 
thought. Logic unites the inner subjective world 
with the outer world of objects. It is the boundary 
line between the two : that being so, it belongs 
equally to both, and its fundamental categories must 
be those of being as well as of thought. 

We may go a step further. It has already been 
said that outer objects must be transmuted into 
thought before we can comprehend them. What 
change is this which they undergo ? If the thought 
is something utterly foreign to them, then we might 
as well have any other thought, or no thought about 
them. In that case our thought is idle and useless. 
If, however, the thought is true, then it cannot be 
foreign to the object of thought. The thought must 
be what the object is in itself. If this is so, the 
object in itself must be thought. This statement may 
seem a little startling at first sight. If we say the 
outer world is objective thought, while what we call 
thought is only subjective thought, and thus the two 
are at heart one, a person who hears this for the first 
time may be confused. Yet w T e have just seen, that, 
obviously, if our thought be worth anything, the 
thought and the object must be at heart one. The 
phrase objective thought is not after all so difficult as 
it may at first appear. Erwin von Steinbach thought 
out a cathedral. The builders of Strasbourg embodied 
his thought in stone. What, then, is the cathedral at 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. . ^ . 

Strasbourg, but the thought of Erwin von Steinbach 
made outer or objective to himself? We may ap- 
proach this structure simply as objective thought. 
When we strive to comprehend it, we strive after the 
thought, which is its reality. When we do compre- 
hend it, we have got hold of its place and object ; that 
is, of the thought which is its reality. We might 
apply the same course of reasoning to the steam 
engine, or to any other work of human skill. Each 
is an objective thought. We look at it, and study to 
get hold of the thought that is in it. The same pro- 
cess we apply also to the objects of the natural world. 
We find these, also, when we approach them aright, 
unfolding themselves, and becoming thought. We 
may illustrate this by saying that the w T orld is the 
thought of God made objective. When we study 
and analyze the world, we trace the unfolding of this 
thought. 

But it may be very properly urged that this illus- 
tration goes only a very little way. The world may be, 
or may be supposed to be, the thought of God ; but 
whose thought can we suppose God himself to be? 
To this may be answered that if God is omniscient 
he must know, that is, must think, his own being. 
His own being must be absolutely an object of 
thought, that is, this also must be objective 
thought. 

When, then, it is said that all being is simply ob- 
jective thought, it is meant that all being exists to 
the infinite mind as thought, and that all being may 
exist to any mind as thought, so far as this mind is 
developed enough to grasp it ; the limit in every case 



I 



b THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

being not the nature of the outward object, but the 

capacity of the mind itself. 

It may be further remarked that this discussio 
does not enter into the metaphysics of thought itself. 
If thought and will are, as I may here assume ther 
to be, the two poles of being, they must, through thi 
polarity, be in essence one. 

The common thought of man assumes this corre- 
spondence, or identity, between thought and being 
If a common man have the notion of cause and effect 
if he cannot think without assuming this notion to b 
true, he does not hesitate to take it for granted that 
cause and effect are in reality what he thinks them to 
be. To doubt in such a case would be to give up all 
reality to thought. We might as well dream as think. 
The man of culture, on the other hand, finds often a 
gulf separating the world of thought from the world 
of being. His thought seems to him unreal, and he 
cannot get hold of true being. He makes perhaps 
some concession ; he says, " These thoughts come and 
go without any will of mine ; they form in themselves 
an organic system, which I cannot disarrange or re- 
model ; they are, then, in a sense, objective to myself. 
They must have some cause external to my own mind. 
What this is I do not and cannot know. Whether it 
has, or not, any resemblance to my thought of it, is a 
question that can never be answered. True being I 
can never find." But the difficulty is one the think- 
er himself hns originated. He cannot find true be- 
ing? What, then, is his thought itself? Is not that 
real? Whatever else is, or is not, that is. His 
thought forms a world in itself. It is the only world 



' THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 9 

he knows anything about. Whether anything else 
has or has not being is a question that is grasped 
entirely out of the air. He has no conception of any- 
thing else. When he has such a conception, he may 
discuss its reality. But then that conception will be 
itself a thought. A single example may show the 
result which springs from this simple and common- 
sense affirmation of the realit}^ of our thought. Meta- 
physicians have discussed the question whether time, 
that is, the succession which gives rise to the concep- 
tion of time, has any real existence. Yet our thoughts 
are real. They succeed one another according to the 
relations of time, and thus these relations are real. 

But, it is urged, the thing in itself must be some- 
thing very different from our thought of it. The 
thing in itself is a cold and shadowy ghost, that- 
haunted the philosophy of Kant, as it has haunted so 
many others. The fact is, we have a real world 
without it. It is a phantom standing outside of the 
great forces of the world, or, rather, thought incor- 
porates it into our world. We may go further, and 
say that there is no such thing as the thing in itself. 
Everything exists in the relations in which it stands 
to the things about it. Existence is no lifeless ab- 
straction ; it is the throb of action and reaction. 
Apart from this, a thing is annihilated. And it is 
these relations which are the objects of thought, and 
which resolve themselves into the relations of thought. 
It may be urged still further that after all that is 
thought has been extracted from the outer world, 
there must be a residuum that is not, and cannot be, 
thought ; that is the material that forms the basis of 



10 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the world of objective thought. In a word, matter 
must always be the antithesis of thought. But what 
is more truly an object of thought, or what is more 
truly the creation of thought, than the abstraction 
that we call matter? 

But the statement of the identity of the subjective 
and the objective world becomes false if we take it 
too literally. 

There is a sense in which water, ice, and vapor are 
the same ; yet they are very different. Water is not 
ice, neither is it vapor, though it is potentially both. 
The abstract chemical formula is the same for all. 
Water, ice, and vapor is each H 2 0. So it is with 
thought and the outer reality in their relations to one 
another. Neither is the other, yet each is at heart 
what the other is, and the formula for one is the for- 
mula for the other. This formula, common to both, 
it is the business of logic to express. 

All that has been said above is simply an elabora- 
tion of what is contained in the simple faith in which 
we think. If it is not true, all thought is simply an 
escape from the tedium of vacuity. Objections to 
the ground taken may be brought from two sources. 
One of the sources is thought itself; the other is the 
imagination. When thought begins to plead against 
the reliability of thought, we may be pardoned if we 
give it little attention. All that has been said has 
been based on the reliability of thought. Suppose 
thought prove thought to be false, what remains? 
Thought. For my thought to question the relia- 
bility of thought in general is to set the individual 
against the universal, from which it springs. 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 11 

The other source from which objections may 
spring is the imagination. In the statement that 
thought and the outer world are at heart one, there 
seems nothing for the imagination to lay hold of. It has 
not been used to represent thought to itself, other- 
wise than as the thought of some particular person, 
my thought or yours. Against the objection of the 
imagination the only reply is, that the imagination 
has here nothing to do. When we discuss the abso- 
lute relations of being, the imagination must remain 
silent, content only with such fragments as the reason 
may be able to throw to it. Much of our false concep- 
tion and false reasoning results from the feeling that 
the imagination must be consulted and satisfied. The 
mathematician has had the courage to banish it or re- 
duce it to quiet. He follows the course of his symbols, 
treading airy heights where the imagination would 
become dizzy, and from which she would hold him 
back. The philosopher has to tread far more dizzy 
heights than those of the mathematician. He, how- 
ever, too often takes the imagination as his compan- 
ion. She, appalled and dizzy with the wastes about 
and beneath them, conjures up many-colored and 
fantastic clouds. Among these the reason wanders 
confusedly, studying them and sketching them as if 
they were realities. Thus has it so often wandered 
iu vain, if it has not indeed lost itself and perished. 

The position which we have taken is thus free from 
the possibility of assault. From it result fcwo con- 
clusions, each of the utmost value to the student of 
thought. The first is, that the categories of thought 
and of being, of the inner and the outer world, are 



12 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the same. The second is, that there is no absolute 
limit to thought, but that for it the unattainable is 
the untrue. 

It need hardly be remarked, that all this is true, 
not of my thought or yours, but of thought itself. 
The special problem for each individual is to make 
his thought fall in with, and express, so far as it goes, 
the absolute thought , We will pass then, now, from 
the general to the individual stand -point. 

The line where the individual comes into direct 
contact with the outer world is that of the senses. 
What has been said in regard to the reliability of 
thought does, not necessarily involve that of the 
senses, in their simple and crude reports. The ap- 
prehension of the unthinking is, that things exist 
exactly as they appear to do ; that the table actually 
stands as they see it before them, with its crimson 
cloth ; that the flowers are many-colored and fragrant ; 
that the lamp actually emits light ; that sounds are 
actually produced from the piano. A slight analysis, 
however, shows that all these colors and scents and 
sounds are mere sensations, and can be reproduced 
separately without the aid of the corresponding out- 
ward object. Thus the sensation of color is ofteu 
produced by mechanical pressure upon the eye. If 
you look earnestly at one bright color, and then turn 
away from it, or close the eye, an entirely different 
color will be seen. The sensation of light may be 
produced by a blow. The school-boy can testify of 
the stars that he sees when the back of his head 
comes in contact with the ice. Perfect figures may 
appear before the mind when there is no outward ob- 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 13 

jcct answering to them. Snob, are the visions which 
present themselves to us in our dreams, or as the re- 
sult of disordered sensational action. The sensa- 
tion of sound may also be excited without external 
cause. One may have a ringing in his ears, when 
there is no ringing to be heard by any one else in his 
neighborhood. 

This analysis need not be continued further. From 
it, it would appear that the world flashes into beauty 
when our glance falls upon it ; that the brook begins 
its rippling song and the cataract takes up its might} 
music when we approach them ; but that without the 
presence of the eye and the ear nature is blank and 
voiceless. If one, pressed by such reasoning, affirms 
that he knows that the world exists as he sees it, be- 
cause of the resistance which he feels when he comes 
in contact with any part of it, as when he strikes his 
hand against a wall, the answer is, that what we call 
the hand, like everything else, may be analyzed into 
sensations. It and the wall stand in the same rela- 
tion, and each has equal need of verification. 

The first remark to be made in respect to such 
reasoning is, that our sensations are as independent 
of us as our thoughts. The causes of the sensations 
are independent of us. We can indeed move the 
hand and the whole body. We thus distinguish our 
body as peculiarly ours. Yet we cannot change it by 
our will. We cannot make one hair white or black, 
or add a cubit to our stature by an act of will. The 
world of the senses is therefore as independent of us 
as the world of thought. We are forced by the in- 
stinct of our nature to believe in it. We do not 



14 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

necessarily believe that it exists in the crass form in 
which the senses picture it to us, or in the yet more 
crass form of matter, which is a lifeless abstraction 
of our own ; but we cannojt help believing that it has 
in some way a real existence. 

The instinct which forces us to this belief divides 
itself into two forms. The first of these forms of 
instinct we may call negative. It is that of self-pres- 
ervation. We shrink from any object which seems 
to approach us with violence. We flee from the 
track of an approaching locomotive. We feel that 
if we did not do this our animal nature would be 
annihilated. Such safeguard is needed in one form 
or other, and, to a greater or less extent, every mo- 
ment. So dear as life is to us then, we must believe 
in the world of the senses. 

The other form of this instinct of belief we may 
call positive. It is the instinct of the activity and 
the development of our whole nature. The moral 
law within us is the highest form which the instinct 
assumes. This moral law requires us to believe in 
the world of the senses ; otherwise it would have no 
field for its activity. This law we feel to be the cen- 
tral point of our being. This impels us to go forth 
into the world, to bring relief to the suffering, and 
justice to the wronged, to throw ourselves into the 
path of evil, and to make the world such as we feel 
it should be. Our aesthetic nature, and indeed all the 
active part of our nature, forces us to the same 
result. 

From the analysis of the elements of the instinct 
of belief in the world of the senses, we may under- 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 15 

stand the emptiness and the lack of reality which the 
world acquires for those who are placed by their 
fortunes in circumstances in which the instincts of 
self-preservation are not called into action, in which 
there is no need to labor for the daily bread, and in 
whom the moral sense has not been quickened or has 
become dead. The two elements which make up 
the instincts of belief lose thus their tone and vigor, 
and the world becomes, as the result, shadowy and 
unreal. 

Whatever confidence we may put in these instincts, 
and in their general testimony, they are, we must 
confess, no certain guide in regard to the truth of 
particular perceptions. In our dreams we strive to 
flee from danger, or to defend ourselves from it. 
The man who is suffering from an attack of delirium 
tremens is affected by the objects that haunt him as 
if they were real. He flees from pursuing serpents, 
or turns to struggle with them, and is wild with ter- 
ror. Thus even the instinct of belief in its strongest 
form, as the instinct of self-preservation, is no cer- 
tain guide as to the truth of particular perceptions. 
What means have we more competent to de- 
cide ? 

Before answering this question, it must be admitted 
that the force of our impressions may be at any mo- 
ment so strong that, however false they may be, no 
power can make us doubt their truth. The victim of 
delirium tremens is absolutely under the power of 
his delusion. No reasoning of his own, and no pro- 
testation of friends, can make him doubt that he is 
really pursued by serpents. Yet when the mind is 



16 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ill a healthy state, we often can and do distinguish 
between false and true impressions of the senses. 
We distinguish the ringing in our ears from any out- 
ward sound. We often know by a feeling of chilli- 
ness that we have taken cold ; that is, we know that 
the chill is within us, not outside of us. A person 
subject to ocular illusions can very often distinguish 
between these and the solid objects about him. This 
is sometimes difficult, however. If one, for instance, 
has a vivid impression of the visible presence of some 
departed friend, it is often difficult for him to deter- 
mine whether what he has seen is the result of a play 
of the senses, or whether it is in truth a vision from 
the spiritual world. If the forefinger and the middle 
finger be crossed, and some small object, as a pea, 
be placed between the tips, the impression upon the 
sense will be^ for obvious physiological reasons, that 
two objects are in contact with the fingers ; yet we 
have no difficulty in determining that there is only 
one. We more often decide against the reality of 
past than of present impressions. A dream may af- 
fect us with as much power as a reality ; yet when we 
look back we have no difficulty in determining wdiat 
was dream and what was reality. 

The appeal in such cases is to thought. Indeed, it 
is by thought, unconscious it may be, that we deter- 
mine every moment the truth of the testimony of 
the senses. Something is accomplished by compar- 
ing the testimony of the senses among themselves. 
Something, also, by comparing the impressions of 
others with our own. In general, however, we have 
to compare the results and impressions of the senses 

2 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 17 

with the fundamental principles, of thought. We 
inquire whether the world which the senses give us 
can possibly be identical with the world of thought. 
My thought assumes that all change takes place in 
accordance with certain relations which we call those 
of cause and effect. These relations form a chain 
by which the course of events is bound together. It 
matters not for our present purpose whether these 
relations are discerned by a posteriori reasoning, or 
whether they are the original forms furnished by 
the mind itself. This last is the position of Kant, 
and he urges that we cannot have gained the knowl- 
edge of cause and effect from the outward world, 
because it is by the presence or absence of these 
relations that we distinguish the outer world, and 
without them we could have no knowledge of it. 
It is enough for our present purpose that these rela- 
tions are inseparable from our thought as it exists, 
and that it is by means of them that we recognize 
the reality and truth of the world which the senses 
offer to us. When this chain of cause and effect is 
broken, then our confidence is lost. We believe that 
the outer reality of our impressions stops when the 
chain is broken. I look back, for instance, to what 
has happened to me within a few hours. I remem- 
ber going to my place of business, or, perhaps, on a 
ramble with a friend. Afterwards I came home to 
tea. When tea was over I went to my room, lighted 
my gas, read Plato or Shakespeare, then extin- 
guished my light, and stretched myself upon my bed. 
The next thing I know is, that I am wandering in 
scenes of Oriental beauty, riding on the same camel 



18 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

with the Grand Turk, or sailing over broad seas be- 
neath the clear blue heavens, or, perhaps, conversing 
with friends that before had been leagues away. 
Then I rind myself in my bed again, not wearied by 
my camel-ride or my voyage. My friends are as far 
away as ever. I rise and go about the regular duties 
of the day. 

In looking back upon all this, I see one point 
where the chain of cause and effect was suddenly 
broken. After that break, I wander through scenes 
connected with one another, or utterly distinct from 
one another, all of them unconnected with those that 
had preceded the break in the chain of cause and 
effect. At last I come to a spot w r here the links of 
the chain unite with those that had been broken, and 
things are bound together again in the original series. 
I distinguish thus in my memory between what is 
reality and what is a dream. All seemed equally 
real at the time of its occurrence, but only those 
impressions which are strung together on the thread 
of cause and effect are recognized by our after- 
thought as real, while those introduced between 
these seem to be mere dreams and fancies. 

When things in general are connected, by cause 
and effect, but something unusual happens which 
seems entirely unconnected with the series, w T e, in 
general, admit it to be real, because the regularity 
of other things persuades us that we are in the full 
possession of our senses. Indeed it is in this manner 
that we decide upon the reality of a hundred things 
in a day, for the presence of which we can give no 
reason. But when all the events of our life take 



1 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 19 

a sudden turn ; when we find ourselves embarked on 
some unexpected journey ; when friends are suddenly 
removed from us, or our life seems in any way dis- 
connected from its previous course, — we say -often 
that we feel as if we were in a dream. We have to 
look back and see how our present state grew out of 
our former condition. In like manner a phenomenon 
may appear to us so remarkable that the utmost reg- 
ularity in other matters will hardly convince us that 
we are not deceived. Here we need the evidence of 
others, and still more the repeated evidence of our 
own senses. We read of men who, in like circum- 
stances, have pinched themselves to see if they were 
awake; that is, to see whether so slight a cause as a 
pinch will produce its customary effect, namely, the 
pain. The appeal in all these cases is to thought , 
that is, to the relation of cause and effect, elsewhere 
maintained, which proves to us that we are still con- 
nected with the world of reality. 

Although we may thus, by the aid of thought, ad- 
mit the outward reality of any phenomenon, the 
cause and general relations of - which are unknown to 
us, on account of the regularity of the phenomena by 
which it is surrounded, just as a man is judged by 
his company, yet we do not rest with this. We do 
not admit that we know any fact or phenomenon till 
we have reduced it to the laws of thought. If the 
astronomer sees a strange star in the heavens, he is 
not content till he finds whence it comes and whither 
it is going. The man of science does not know any 
object till he has brought it into his system of the 
universe. We see, for instance, a muscle in the 



20 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

human body. It strikes us as a mere phenomenon, 
which might be there, or might not. But when we 
see it, in its connection with the rest ; when we see 
the regular part that it plays in the bodily system, 
perhaps to enable us to raise a limb, perhaps only to 
bring a dimple to the cheek ; when we see that it is 
the analogon of the corresponding organ in the lower 
animals, perhaps, like the motor muscles of the ear, 
only existing as a trace of this lower organization ; 
when we examine its structure, and see how this is 
adapted to its purpose, the provisions that are made 
for its support and excitation ; when we see how it 
destroys itself by its action, and repairs itself from 
that which is akin to it in the blood, and which had 
been first eliminated from the food ; when, in a word, 
we have reduced it to thought, so that we have before 
us no longer a mere object of the senses, but an 
object of thought, or, more accurately, a complex 
thought, — then first we feel that we know it ; then, 
indeed, does it first become real to us. 

Not only do w T e analyze an object of sensation into 
thought, we often by thought change its whole ap- 
parent nature, and contradict the senses by means of 
the very material which the senses have given us. 
If our senses inform us of anything, it is that the sun 
rises and sets. This is at first implicitly believed by 
us. Afterwards we find that it is impossible. The 
sun, so far as its rising and setting are concerned, 
does not move. It is we that move, and thus 
the testimony of the senses is proved to be false. 
I know that it will be said that our senses utter the 
truth in this case ; that it is our inductions from this 



THOUGHT IN GENERAL. 21 

that are in the wrong ; that our sensations are just 
what they should be, the circumstances being what 
they are. This is freely admitted ; yet the object 
which we place beneath and behind our sensations in 
this case is no more the result of induction than it is 
in all cases. What we call an object of sense is, in 
all cases, our induction from our sensations. The 
man who scorns thought, and trusts to his senses, 
really trusts to his induction from them, that is, to 
his thought about what the senses affirm. Reason- 
ing only substitutes clear, thorough, and complete 
thought, in the place of that which is imperfect and 
confused. 

It often happens that thought afterwards restores to 
the world of the senses that of which it at first robbed 
it. Thought is very apt to be first destructive, and 
then constructive. We have already seen how the 
first serious thought seems to take its life and beauty 
out of the world of the senses. Color, form, sound, 
fragrance, beauty, melody, — all these seem to de- 
pend upon human presence. The beauty of nature 
seems an obsequious slave that springs into action 
when our glance Mis upon it, and sinks back into 
indifference when we turn away. More perfect 
thought, however, reaching the conception of the 
Infinite Subject, the divine consciousness everywhere 
present, restores to nature more than it took from 
her. There is always present this higher conscious- 
ness of Grod, to which no life or beauty is lost. The 
world is always fresh and fair, let us come and go as 
we will. 

We have thus seen how universal is the world of 



22 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

thought. We have seen that it is real, and the only 
reality, and that in it we live and move and have our 
being. We see, then, that no study comes more near 
to us than the study of the laws and relations of 
thought. When we first enter the world of thought 
these relations seem utterly confused and entangled. 
Men think everything and about everything. One 
man thinks one thing and another another. Child- 
hood, manhood, and age has each its thoughts. The 
thoughts of one generation are not those of another. 
All is confused, as when we look at the crowd of bees 
that seem huddled together in a hive, or the crowd 
of ants swarming about their little hill. But as when 
we look at the bees long enough and wisely enough, 
we distinguish the work and the place of each ; as by 
proper observation we discern that the ants do not 
move perfectly at random, but that each has its work, 
and the work of all is in reality the same : so when 
we study these crowding, hurrying, swarming thoughts, 
long enough, we see that they, also, have their order 
and their system. We shortly detect two distinct 
lines of movement, which, without more minute 
analysis, we may accept at present. We see that 
thought moves either from the more general towards 
the particular and individual, or else from the latter 
to the former. The separate impressions of the senses, 
which are the extremes of individualization, we seek to 
lead to higher and higher generalization. The instinct 
of generalization and induction is one stamped 
deeply on the soul. From this tendency have sprung 
all the natural sciences. We ever seek a higher law 
in which all others shall find themselves absorbed ; a 



THOUGHT IN GENEAL. 23 

/ 

broader fact which shall include all that we have 
known before. On the other hand, no abstract thought 
is content to remain in its abstraction. It will develop 
itself into the most minute subdivisions of which it is 
capable, and it will find itself embodied in outward 
facts. This twofold motion, downward from the 
universal towards the particular and the individual, 
and upward from the individual towards the universal, 
constitute the life and being of thought. It is to 
discover the manner in which the universal, the par- 
ticular, and the individual find themselves related, and 
the movement by which one passes into another, that 
is the object and the substance of logic. 

The most universal terms, which express in brief 
the relations within which all existence is confined, 
and which furnish thus the form and the material of 
our thought, are called categories. If what has been 
said of the relation of thought and being is true, 
these must in their last analysis correspond with the 
relations of thought itself. In entering upon the 
study of thought as a reality, we must first take ac- 
count of these. 



FIRST BOOK. 



ABSTRACT MATERIAL 



AND 



RELATIONS OF THOUGHT; 



CATEGORIES. 



FIRST. — POSITIVE 

STATIC RELATIONS. 



A. — QUALITY. 



When we seek for the idea which is the most uni- 
versal, or for the fact that includes all others, we 
come upon the idea and the fact of being. This is 
not absolutely universal either in thought or in fact. 
It is already discriminated from non-being or nothing. 
When we say that a thing is, or that God is, we ex- 
clude the possibility of the nonentity of that in 
regard to which we affirm that it is. When a thing 
comes into being, it ceases to be nothing. Being is 
thus affirmation over against non-being. We have, 
however, no thought, and thus no word, which in- 
cludes all that is and all that is not. Thought de- 
mands limit. It is the limitation of the universal, or 
the expanding of the limited into the universal. Our 
thought begins with the separation between being and 
non-being. 

Because thought consists in entering into, or pass- 
ing out of limitations ; because, also, existence is 
limitation upon limitation, — pure being, unlimited 
and undetermined, is hardly different from non-being. 
If we say simply is, we say nothing. Every other 



28 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

word which is not merely formal says something by 
itself. You may say walk or run, black or tvhile. 
Each word means something by itself, to any one who 
is used to and comprehends it. But if yon say is, 
what meaning can any one attach to that ? If you say 
God is — , to one who attaches no meaning to the 
word God, the answer would be, God is, very well, 
what is he? When you say is, you say nothing, till 
you say what is, and what it is. You might as well 
say is not, as is. Thus pure, absolute, undivided 
being would be no thing, because it is not as yet sub- 
jected to the limitations by which it becomes some- 
thing. Pure, unbroken li^ht is indistinguishable 
from darkness. If the universe were full of light, 
with no object to break up this light into color, you 
might as well say that the universe is dark as that it 
is light. There is indeed this difference, that in the 
one case there is the possibility of color, and thus of 
light, and in the other there is not this possibility. 
But thus far this difference is merely potential. What 
the senses mean by light has no existence. 

Things exist in their qualities, and all quality re- 
sults from limitation. A thing is what it is, on ac- 
count of what it is not. Eed is red because the 
green rays have been absorbed, or in some way 
stricken out from the ray of light. Color is the union 
of light and darkness ; that is, of light and the absence 
of light. Thus everything is what it is through 
what it is not. As color is a union of light and dark- 
ness, so quality in general is a mingling of being and 
non-being ; that is, it is partial being. This fact lies 
at the very threshold of metaphysical thought. 



QUALITY. 29 

All qualities are limited, because each is only the 
partial expression or manifestation of the object, the 
quality of which it is. The object, so to speak, 
breaks itself up into these qualities, as light breaks 
itself up into colors. No one quality represents the 
unit of being which is the object of which it is one 
of the qualities. The qualities of finite objects are 
doubly limited, because it is owing to the hniteness 
of the object that it has these particular qualities and 
no others. 

When it is said that quality is limitation and exclu- 
sion, it must not be understood that thus it is merely 
negative. The color of red is not merely the absence 
of green, it is light, though light destitute of the 
green rays. So all quality has a positive reality 
although this reality is partial. Neither must it be 
supposed that this negation is anything imposed upon 
the body from without. The negative element is as 
much a part of its existence as the positive. The 
quality, if we may use the expression, separates itself 
from its opposite. Thus colors and sounds separate 
themselves by their own laws. 

Qualities often appear to us merely different from 
one another. Walking, running, leaping, are each 
special methods of motion. The qualities of each 
motion distinguish it from other forms of motion, and 
specialize it out of abstract motion. These qualities 
have no particular relation to one another, so far as 
we caii discern. Other qualities differ as mere posi- 
tive and negative ; that is, one is the mere absence of 
the other. Thus, good and bad, light and dark, differ 
merely as presence and absence. But from the clefi- 



30 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

nition of quality, it will be obvious that this relation 
must often be more special and direct. If qualities 
result from limitation, and thus from division, one 
quality being one side of the line, and another the 
other, there must be two qualities which are comple- 
mental to each other ; that is they result from the 
division of a unit which is reformed by their union. 
Of these complemental qualities we find an example 
in the colors red and green, already so often referred 
to. This relation we may even call polar ; but we do 
this not with perfect propriety. Qualities which are 
polar stand in a more intimate relation to one another, 
one having no possible or conceivable existence with- 
out the other. Thus the positive and negative elec- 
tricity are distinguished by their peculiar qualities, 
yet neither can exist without the other. We thus 
see that elements which are the most sharply divided 
are the most intimately connected. Those that are 
merely different from one another may exist inde- 
pendently; but when the difference has become 
polar, Ave know that the elements must be at heart 
one, each having its being in the other. We might 
expect, from what was said above, that complimen- 
tary qualities would be as inseparable as those that 
stand in a polar relation to one another. We might 
expect that, if they are the result of the division of 
a unit, both of the separated elements must remain ; 
and there could be, for instance, no green without red, 
and no red without green. In the case of a color, as 
green, however, the energy that would have mani- 
fested itself as red may put on another form. An 
object is green, because, while the green rays are 



QUALITY. 31 

reflected, the red have been absorbed or exist no 
more as red but are transformed into some other 
kind of activity. 

The quality of an object may be defined as that 
which cannot be changed without change in the 
structure or nature of the object. The object changes 
with its qualities. When we say that an object is 
changed, we mean that its qualities have become dif- 
ferent. Some qualities involve in their transfor- 
mation a fundamental and radical revolution in the 
object. We speak of the lion as carnivorous. Should 
the time ever come when the lion shall eat straw like 
the ox, his whole organization would be changed. 
Teeth, claws, digestive apparatus, and indeed the 
whole structure and economy of the animal would 
be transformed. Other qualities demand for their 
mutation less general disturbance. Of these, color 
is, perhaps, the most superficial. The mineralogist, 
for instance, to a very great degree disregards color 
in his classification. Color is not essential in the 
stone. Yet the color of a stone implies the presence 
or the absence of some ingredient which extends 
through all the particles of its composition. So in 
all cases a change in color involves some change, 
however slight, in structure or composition. 

Different objects may have similar qualities. We 
generalize this similarity, and reach the conception 
of a quality common to all these objects. The qual- 
ity extends beyond one objects and we may sum up 
all that possess it under the quality which they have 
in common. Many objects are red ; many animals 
are carnivorous. The whole world is divided by the 
words organic and^ inorganic. Life, motion, rest, 



32 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

may be affirmed of multitudes of objects that differ 
iu almost all other respects. Thus, a quality may be 
considered as a universal, and the objects possessing 
the quality as individuals under this universal. 

A moment's thought will show us, however, that 
we might take a diametrically opposite view. Each 
object has not one quality but many. All of these 
are its broken manifestation. Each partially repre- 
sents it. We may, therefore, regard the object as 
the universal, and the qualities as particulars and 
individuals under it. Moreover, we may sum up the 
units of being, which are the objects, under some 
generalization that shall include them in their whole- 
ness without breaking them up into qualities. We 
thus leave out from our thoughts the qualities of ob- 
jects, and consider them .as independent of these. 
But matter abstracted from quality exists merely as 
quantity. 

B. — QUANTITY. 

Quality has been defined to be that which cannot 
be changed in a bod} 7 ", without change in the struc- 
ture or composition of the body. Quantity is that 
in which a body may be changed without any change 
in its structure and composition, and thus in its qual- 
ity. This definition, however, includes too much ; 
for rest and motion and other outward relations 
imply possibility of change without change of qual- 
ity. It does not include enough ; for a quality itself 
admits of change that is quantitative and not qualita- 
tive. We may then give, as a final definition of 
quantity, the following : Quantity is that to the per 



QUANTITY. 33 

manence or the changes of which quality and the 
relations of space are indifferent. This definition 
includes all and no more than is involved in the con- 
ception of quantity, while, at the same time, it avoids 
the tautology of the common definition, which speaks 
of increase and diminution, which already involve the 
idea of quantity. 4 

Quantity may be extensive or intensive. A 
stone may be larger or smaller. This involves the 
idea of extensive quantity. Red may be more or 
less intense, and it is still red. This is intensive 
quantity. 

Extensive quantity may be continuous or discrete. 
The possibility of extensive quantity we call space. 

From the definitions above given, it is obvious 
that quantity is not merely quantitative, but that it 
is qualitative also ; that is, it has itself qualities. The 
difference of intensive and extensive, of continuous 
and discrete, are differences of quality. These qual- 
itative distinctions are found in the whole extent of 
quantitative relations. Continuous quantity and dis- 
crete quantity, each involves certain necessary rela- 
tions which form the qualities of each. The qualities 
of continui us quantity form the basis of geometry ; 
those of discrete quantity form the basis of arith- 
metic and algebra ; that is, of number. When we 
speak of the extent, or the size of any object, we re- 
gard it as continuous. If it has separate parts, if it 
is composed of atoms, we overlook them. We regard 
simply the space occupied by the body. When we 
speak of the number of any bodies, we regard them 
as discrete. When we apply the distinctions of arith- 



34 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

rnetie to chemistry, we resrard the bodies under cod- 
sider.ition as made up of atoms, each distinct in itself. 
According to the atomic theory in its full extent, the 
molecules of a body do not touch each other. Thus, 
according to this theory, there could be no contin- 
uous quantity, except in the separate molecules them- 
selves, and in -abstract space. Space itself we may 
consider as made up of points, but we recognize 
this as n mere help to the imagination, since these 
points cannot be separated. The same is true of the 
fictions by which a solid is supposed to be made up of 
planes, or the circumference of a circle to be made up 
of straight lines. All of these cases change continuous 
into discrete quantity, because the relations of the 
latter are so much more easily handled than those of 
the former. We must not, however, allow ourselves 
to be deceived and misled by such practical methods 
into theoretical error. Quantity is both continuous 
and discrete. Neither element can exist by itself. 
Continuous quantity consists of points. Yet these 
points fill all the space, and are themselves perfectly 
alike. Each is what the other is ; and thus they are 
continuous. The point has no existence by itself, 
merely as an abstract point ; neither has continuous 
quantity an existence without points. The famous 
paradoxes of the Eleatics, by which they sought to 
prove that there could be no motion, were founded 
upon the fallacy of supposing that either continuous 
or discrete quantity could exist by itself. Thus it 
was said, when a body moves through a certain space 
it is for an infinitely minute period of time in every 
point of the space through which it moved. This 



LIMIT. 35 

being so, it was argued that it was at rest at every 
one of these points, and if it rested at every point, it 
was all rest and there could be no motion. We can- 
not thus sever the two elements of quantity. It is 
both discrete and continuous. It is made up of 
points, yet it is an unbroken whole. Such reasoning 
upon continuous motion, as if it were made up of 
successive rests, however infinitesimal, is as if the 
geometrician should take in serious earnest the occa- 
sionally convenient assumption, that the circle is a 
polygon with infinitesimal sides. 

Quantity, as we have seen, is independent of all 
qualities save its own, and these it carries wherever 
it goes. We found that quality was imperfect as a 
universal, because it might be considered as subordi- 
nate to the unit of being of the object, one of whose 
qualities it is. We therefore turned from quality to 
that unit of being, which is one form of quantity. 
When we sum up objects as units, we sum up all that 
they are. But quantity took us faithfully at our word. 
The qualities that we gave up are lost to us. Quan- 
tity is more abstract even than quality. Take a thing 
as a unit, and you regard nothing more in it. A unit 
is a unit, and all units are alike. Let it be pebbles 
or worlds, each is a unit; each is one. 

5 + 3 = 8, 

whether we are considering men, nations, or straws. 
We find a like abstractness in continuous quantity. 
It measures the space occupied by an object, not the 
object itself. It is utterly empty and unreal. 
This indifference of quantity has, however, its limit. 



3(3 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

As quantities change we meet, here and there, point 
where change in quantity becomes change in quality 
It h the last straw, says the proverb, that breaks the 
camel's back. As addition after addition is made, 
however slight and gradual these may be, a point is 
at last reached, where the load which was at first 
hardly perceptible becomes a crushing weight. 

C. LIMIT. 

We reach thus the knowledge, that the indifference 
of quality to quantity has limits be} 7 ond which it does 
not exist. Quantity and quality thus strike into one 
another. To everything there is placed a limit, with- 
in which it is confined. If it passes this limit, it 
ceases to be what it was. The higher the organiza- 
tion of a body, the more it is subjected to the law of 
limit. The worlds, the mere rude material bodies 
which are scattered through space, are of all sizes 
from the meteor to the suns. Yet even here quantity 
makes a difference in quality. The condition of the 
different worlds at any. given time appears to depend 
upon their size, more than upon any other circum- 
stance with which we are familiar. All originally 
being fiery and molten masses, the rate of their cool- 
ing depends upon their bulk. One, like the moon, 
is cold and lifeless, without moisture or inhabitant. 
Another, like Jupiter, is still a watery mass unfit for 
habitation. Another is a mass of fire; while others 
still have reached and not passed the temperate period 
suitable for habitation. What other causes may be 
at work we do not now know. Whether the heat of 



LIMIT. 37 

U " sun is, according to the ingenious theory of 
X yer, kept up by meteoric blows, as the iron may 
be kept hot by the hammer, has not yet been deter- 
mined. Still the fact remains in general true, that 
the present condition of each world is dependent 
upon its size. The mineral elements of the earth are 
less directly dependent upon their quantity for their 
quality. A stone may be any size, and yet the same, 
although there is in many respects a difference be- 
tween a grain of sand, a rock, and a mountain. In 
water this is more marked. The difference between 
the ocean with its tidal flow, and all else that mark 
it for what it is, and a pool by the roadside, is a dif- 
ference of size. The higher organic forms are held 

o o 

more sternly to the law of limit. Man and all the 
higher animals have limits which they cannot pass. 
What goes beyond these by r any chance, we call mon- 
strous, and feel for it either horror or disgust. It is 
worthy of remark, however, that this limit is much 
more fixed at present than it was in the geologic 
epochs. Then animal life, and especially reptile life, 
seemed to be subjected to no law or restraint of bulk. 
One element of the awe, if not the horror, which we 
feel, as we contemplate the swarming monsters of the 
mesozoic period, is this lawlessness, this absence of 
limit. The classes of existence seemed to run to- 
gether. Bird, beast, and reptile seemed to flow into 
one another, while all grew together, apparently to 
such bulk as chance might suggest. Here were 
doubtless law and limit, but these were so different 
from anything which we know as such, that we do not 
recognize them without careful and prolonged study, 



38 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

and then only partially. The dread which many feel 
of any theory of development results from this, that 
the law and limit which "rules the world seems by it 
to be done away. 

In social organizations we find the law of limit as- 
serting itself. A town, as it varies in size from a 
frontier settlement to a mighty city, changes its na- 
ture, as the Tityrus of Virgil discovered to his wonder, 
more even than it changes its size. The political 
organization, the architecture, the furniture, the cus- 
toms of society, these and innumerable other elements, 
change by a certain necessity with the growth of a 
town, so that one hardly knows, in the contemplation 
of London or New York, whether he is more struck 
by the extent of streets and houses, or by the ap- 
pearance of a single street. Broadway is more New 
York, the boulevards are more Paris, than the extent 
and the mass of buildings and population that sur- 
round them. But yet Broadway and the boulevards 
grew out of this mass, and are its exponent. We hn 
the same principle in smaller structures and organiza 
tions. The rig of a vessel varies with its size. On 
is a sloop, another a brig, another a ship, with vary 
ing limits to be sure, but in general according to its 
tonnage. In a word, this principle runs through civil- 
ized life. 

In qualities the law of limit is no less marked. 
Here we see more clearly manifested the tendency, 
not merely to a change, but to an absolute transfor- 
mation and inversion, in passing the limitation line. 
A quality tends to become its opposite when it passes 
beyond its limit ; that is, its generic character thus 



CHANGE. 39 

changes, even when its formal individuality remains 
the same. Thus a virtue overdriven becomes a vice 
Generosity passes the limiting line and becomes prod- 
igality. Economy becomes avarice. Zeal becomes 
bigotry. Playfulness becomes emptiness. It is in 
this way, by the transformation of qualities and their 
effects, that extremes meet. The miser often feels 
more of the evils of poverty than the beggar to whom 
he refuses a pittance. The mere pleasure-seeker is 
the most melancholy being in existence. What is 
through its novelty a joy, becomes through repetition 
commonplace and wearisome. The means of enjoy- 
ment, and the capacities for enjoyment, tend to reach 
their limit together. A punctilious legality may pass 
into Pharisaic pride, and sin itself may, through re- 
pentance excited by the very enormity of its sinful- 
ness, become virtue. 

" Pride ruined the angels ; 
Their shame them restores; 
And the joy that is sweetest 
Lurks in stings of remorse." 

This tendency is indeed the saving, if not the 
moving, power of history. Tyranny thus works for 
democracy, and democracy, when it degenerates into 
a mob, assumes some law, even if it be that of an 
empire. The Spartans used to send a drunkard 
through the streets as a teacher of temperance. In 
this way vice itself becomes the minister and the 
handmaid of virtue. In a word, this tendency is the 
basis of the great law of compensation, according to 
which self-sacrifice becomes its own reward ; of the 
great law of retribution, by which self-indulgence 



40 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

brings its own penalty ; and of the great law of action 
and reaction, by which the world keeps its balance 
and is fenced into its appointed path. 



SECOND. -NEGATIVE. 

DYNAMIC RELATIONS. 



A. — THE NEGATIVE EELATION OF A QUALITY OR 

OBJECT TO ITSELF. 

CHANGE. 

We have seen that there is a point where change in 
quantity becomes change in quality. The change in 
quality, as change in quantity goes on, has been com- 
pared to the length of a knotted cord. Every now 
and then you come upon one of these knots which 
marks a change. 

Not only is it true that these limits exist. It is no 
less true that everything tends to pass its limits. 
Nothing rests behind the limits which are assigned to 
it. Thus there is a law of change in all things. 
This tendency of an object to become something dif- 
ferent from what it is constitutes its negative rela- 
tion to itself. It has in its own nature that element, 
which, so far as its present structure and condition are 
concerned, will prove its destruction. By fulfilling 
its own nature, it passes out from its own nature. 



CHANGE. 41 

The abstract possibility of such chaDge we call time. 
Time is the abstract possibility of succession, that is, 
of change. We are conscious of time through 
change, and we measure it by the different rapidity 
of the changes that take place in different objects. 
Objects are so formed, or so related, that mere duration 
or length of time becomes equivalent to change. By 
mere existence, prolonged to a certain limit, they 
become either changed, or as individual objects they 
pass out of existence. Objects that have not pri- 
marily this negative relation to themselves are de- 
pendent for their existence upon, and thus mere out- 
growths of, others that have this negative relation to 
themselves, and whose very continuance thus becomes 
their own change or destruction, and thus the change 
or destruction of all that depends upon them. The 
tendency to pass beyond the limit which is affixed to 
an object becomes stronger according to the strictness 
of the limit in which it is enclosed. The higher an 
object stands in the scale of being, the more closely 
it is subjected to the law of limit, and the more does 
it tend to pass its limit. 

The world, originally a fiery mass, possessed this 
negative relation to itself, which involved constant 
change, and which made mere duration equivalent to 
change. The form of this negative relation was the 
law of the radiation of heat. This radiation, which 
was one of the fundamental conditions of the burning 
mass, involved change with everv moment. It could 
not remain as it was unless time itself stopped. Thus 
all the changes and convulsions which followed were 
involved in this first germ. Often the world reached 



42 TnE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

periods of seeming rest, but the fate of each was 
written upon itself. Eaeli succeeding form of the 
earth's surface retained within itself the seeds of its 
own overthrow. As the earth grew cool, race after 
race of animal and vegetable life succeeded one 
another. Each being bound to conditions which were 
transient was transient also. Those races of mon- 
sters, which we just contemplated, seemed to have 
no limit of size and shape. The limit of time was, 
however, upon them. The relation to itself of the 
whole order to which they belonged was negative, 
and it must pass away, and they with it. 

At the present day, some forms of vegetable life 
seem to have no element of destruction within them- 
selves. A tree, it would seem, might grow forever. 
But the circumstances change on which it depends, 
and thus at length it passes away. Some vegetable 
life, and all animal life, stands of itself in this nega- 
tive relation to itself. Every animal organization 
bears within itself the principle of its own destruc- 
tion. Death is a regular part of the process of life. 
We are apt to regard it as something superadded to 
life, as an accident, or at least as something intro- 
ducing itself from without. We are apt to think 
that at least it is caused by some defect in the ma- 
chinery of life, and that, if this defect could be re- 
moved, life would run on forever. The contrary of 
this is true. Death is the natural and necessary result 
of the merely individual life. The more perfect the 
organization, the more certain and inevitable is this 
result. The tree, we have seen, may live for centu- 
ries. A reptile, under certain circumstances, may 






CAUSE AND EFFECT. 43 

have its life prolonged indefinitely ; such is the ease 
with regard to those toads which have been found 
embodied in rocks. But in such cases as this, the 
suspension of death resulted from the suspension of 
life. When the wheels of life began to move again, 
death began also its approach. In the case of the 
higher organisms there is no such reprieve. Finite 
life, by its very process, like everything else that is 
finite, passes into its opposite. The process of life 
is also a process of death. 

In the complex organizations of society we find 
this negative relation equally supreme ; each civiliza- 
tion, each structure of social, civil, or ecclesiastical 
order, rests upon an idea or group of ideas. But 
these ideas are forms of thought, and thought by its 
own nature is constant change. Universal principles 
develop themselves to fresh and special results, and 
facts, familiar or strange, give rise to new general 
principles. Thus ideas change no less than outward 
relations, and a civilization which has grouped itself 
about an idea is but the shell of a germinant seed. 
The seed will germinate, and the shell must be broken 
and destroyed. The task of the historian, often a 
sad one, is to show how in each civilization lies the 
sentence of its own death. 

This negative relation to itself, that is, the limit 
which is affixed to everything, and its tendency to pass 
this limit, is the principle and power which the an- 
cients embodied in their conception of fate. It is 
the power of repression, of compensation, and of 
destruction. We may also remark, that if this law 
of limit, and of the passing beyond this limit, by 



44 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

which a change in quantity — extensive or intensive — 
becomes a change of quality, were recognized, it would 
take from many the prejudice and the dread that they 
have of any theory of creation by development. No 
such theory has, indeed, as yet been established, but if 
one should be established, this development would be 
only the progress along such a knotted line as has been 
referred to ; and though the line were the same, the 
difference between what lay on one side of one of these 
knots, and what lay on the other, although in itself 
only a difference of degree, would amount to a differ- 
ence in kind, as complete as though each belonged to a 
series of its own. 



B — NEGATIVE RELATION OF A QUALITY OR AN OB- 
JECT TOWARDS OTHERS. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

We have seen how each object involves by its 
nature the necessity of change. This change can- 
not concern itself alone. Its change is a change in 
quality, and a quality is the relation in which it stands 
to other objects, the way in which it is affected by 
them, and in which it affects them. A change iu one 
object will thus affect other objects, and cause a 
change in them. We thus reach the conception of 
cause and effect. This relation is indeed, in itself, 
the exemplification of the negative relation to one's 
self. It is the nature of a cause to produce the ef- 
fect; when the effect 's produced, the cause in gen- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 45 

eral, as a cause, ceases to exist. Practically, however, 
there is this difference ; an object, as cause, stands 
not merely in a negative relation to itself, but also to 
some other object outside of itself. The elements 
of the process are separated, and stand over against 
one another. A fusee burning in a keg of powder 
destroys itself by its negative relation to itself, but 
as cause it destroys the powder which is outside of 
itself. This negative relation of a body, not to it- 
self, but to an object outside of itself, then, is what 
marks the present stage of the process we are con- 
sidering. 

The relation of cause and effect was formerly treated 
in a purely metaphysical manner. Some philoso- 
phers denied that we had any such notion as that of 
cause. Metaphysical definitions were given, which 
did not meet the circumstances of the case, or did 
not discriminate them from others. At present, 
thanks to our modern science, we can give a scien- 
tific definition which, while it does not remove all 
metaphysical difficulty, furnishes a conception of 
causation more real and clear than has before been 
possible. 

The more strictly metaphysical aspects of the sub- 
ject will be referred to later in this work, under the 
title "Propositions of the Keason." 

The simplest form of causation is that in which the 
body itself, which is the cause, passes over into other 
relations, and becomes effect. 

The definition of this form of causation would be 
the transferrence of substance. The rain falls from 
the sky: this is the cause; the effect is that the 



46 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ground is wet. The water has been transferred from 
the atmosphere to the earth. A light weight is in 
one scale of a balance, too light to outweigh the sub- 
stance that is in the other scale. I throw an iron 
weight into the first scale, and it sinks. Here the 
iron weight is cause, and it acts by being itself trans- 
ferred to the scale on which it acts. This is the sim- 
plest form of causation. It may, however, become 
more complicated without changing its nature. In 
the examples just given, the qualities of the objects 
transferred in the one case of the water, and in the 
other of the iron, are recognized in the new combina- 
tion. In other cases, however, the object transferred 
loses its distinctive character. The changes that 
surprise us in the chemist's laboratory result largely 
from transferrence of substance, though we cannot 
trace the substance in its new composition save by 
chemical analysis. 

The more general definition of causation is the 
transferrence of farce or motion. This is the form of 
causation that underlies all others, and upon which 
modern science has thrown such floods of light. It 
includes the form of causation first referred to, since 
the transferrence of substance implies and involves ^ 
the transferrence of force. 

I strike a rock with a hammer. The hammer strik- 
ing the rock is stopped in its descent. The rock may 
not be broken. Hammer and rock both appear as 
before. Still the force that moved the hammer is 
not lost. The outward motion has become an inner 
motion, a molecular action. Hammer and rock are 
both heated to a degree corresponding with the vio- 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 47 

lence of the concussion. Thus no force is lost. No 
motion is succeeded by rest, but only by a different 
form of motion, or by motion in a different body. 
Heat, light, electricity, chemical action, and vital 
action, are thus shown to be different forms of the 
same force. This force can be tracked in all its 
changes. It can be weighed, measured, calculated, 
with the utmost exactness. This discovery of science, 
which is called variously the correlation of forces and 
the conservation of force, is one of the grandest ever 
made, and the extent of its application and its results 
is only beginning to be known and appreciated. In- 
stead, therefore, of giving clumsy metaphysical defi- 
nitions of causation, or getting into metaphysical 
difficulties about it, we may simply say that causation 
is the transference of force. To make this definition 
complete, the word force should be itself defined. 
Force is the momentum of action, or that property by 
which activity is continued under some form or other. 
An ivory ball in its motion strikes another and is put 
to rest. The other moves. The momentum of the 
first is transferred to that. This transfer is, however, 
not complete. The second moves with less momen- 
tum than the first. A part of the momentum of the 
first is applied to the atoms of each, producing that 
motion which we call heat. 

We cannot indeed as yet prove that the definition thus 
given includes all the phenomena of causation. There 
are certain forms of this relation, which we do not yet 
full y understand, but where no transferrence of either 
substance or motion can be discovered. Chief among 
these stand the phenomena of attraction, especially 



48 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the attraction of gravitation. It should be borne in 
mind that this and all apparent exceptions to the 
general principle of causation are merely phenomena 
which we do not understand. We cannot say posi- 
tively that they are exceptions. The attraction of 
one body by another, of all bodies by the earth, and 
of all worlds by one another, seems to be force ex- 
erted without being transferred. The force of attrac- 
ts 

tion seems to spring into being as the bodies are 
brought near to one another, and to lessen and finally 
to be destroyed as they are separated. It may be, 
however, that some corresponding change, not yet de- 
tected, takes place in the internal structure of the 
body, corresponding to, and making possible this ex- 
ternal manifestation of force. This is at least the 
conjecture of Faraday. We can readily imagine that 
either the chemical attraction or the attraction of co- 
hesion becomes less, as the attraction of a body for 
another that is approaching it grows stronger. If 
anything like this should ever be detected, then gravi- 
tation itself would be comprehended under the law 
of the correlation of forces. Another apparent ex- 
ception to this law is the very strange fact, that in 
chemistry two objects, the affinity of which is not 
strong enough to promote a union, do yet unite at the 
mere presence of a third body, which remains un- 
affected by the operation. This uncomprehended fact, 
which is called by the chemists Catalysis, appears to 
stand in an exceptional relation to the law of the cor- 
relation of forces. This, however, may also seem to 
be an exception simply because it is not understood. 
It will very possibly be some day discovered that a 
4 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 49 

molecular action and disturbance is introduced by the 
presence of the third body, which enables the two 
first to combine as they were otherwise unable to do, 
and that this itself sustains some corresponding 
change. 

But we apply the word causation not merely to 
physical, but also to spiritual and mental, relations, and 
the questiou arises, in what manner the definition of 
causation that has been given applies to these. If it 
be urged that we know too little of the relations of 
minds to one another and to matter to affirm in regard 
to them the transferrence of force, the reply is, that if 
we cannot apply this definition to spiritual causation 
literally, we do it figuratively. The word can have 
no other meaning. The meaning of the word fall 
remains the same, even if it cannot be applied liter- 
ally to the "Fall of Man." If, however, we confine 
ourselves to ordinary human, mental, or spiritual 
causation, we find, in fact, that the law of the con- 
servation and correlation of forces is unbroken. Men- 
tal causation, in regard to physical matters, bears a 
direct ratio to the amount of force contained in the 
food taken into the system, or otherwise received 
from the external world ; at least it can never go be- 
yond this. Thus it would appear that force is directed, 
not generated, by the soul. 

Further objections to the definition of causation 
just given, though furnishing no exceptions to it, may 
arise from the confused notion which many entertain 
in regard to what causation may be supposed to ac- 
complish. Cause can simply relate to change. There 
are •two classes of facts, then, which lie out of the 



50 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

range of causation, and cannot be included in any 
series of cause and effect. The first of these is abso- 
lute being, and the second is the primary and funda- 
mental qualities of being. These can be brought 
under any system of causation, only by reference to 
the transfer of substance. There the causation can- 
not be absolute. The confused nature of the popular 
notion of causation may be seen from the ease with 
which arguments based upon it have been refuted 
even by a child. What is the cause of the world is 
the question, and the answer is, God. The next 
question is, What, then, is the cause of God, or, as the 
child puts it, Who made God? By such logic we are 
carried back and back with no possibility of rest. 
Causation applies to change. We see a series of 
changes going on in the universe. We see them all 
standing in harmonious relations to one another. We 
may well ask, then, what is the principle of unity 
in all these different processes and substances ? This 
unity of process, this controlling oneness of plan and 
operation, is that which we are to seek. We do not 
ask the cause of existence, but the power which 
works through existence to a given end. If the inii- 
verse be, according to the Buddhist conception of it, 
a dream and a delusion, then it may, indeed, have 
been created out of nothing. But if it be a real and 
living thing, then did God impart to it something of 
his own divine energy. To pursue this topic further 
would, however, carry us beyond our present discus- 
sion.* 

* The propriety and usefulness of the application of analogical reasoning 



ORGANIC RELATIONS. 51 

Another point to which the law of causation does 
not apply is the peculiarity of the primary qualities 
of substances. Causation is the transfer of force. 
The force which in one object produces one result, 
in another object produces another result. One mo- 
ment it is heat, the next it is light. Why one form 
of undulation will produce upon us the effect of one 
color, another that of another color, another that of 
no color, but of a sound, lies probably beyond the 
reach of possible discovery. We can analyze quali- 
ties to a certain extent, and show the dependence of 
one upon another, but the fundamental qualities of 
substances we cannot in any scientific manner ex- 
plain. 

In regard to all these objections and apparent ex- 
ceptions, it may be remarked, though with some repe- 
tition, in conclusion, that the meaning of the word 
causation is the transfer of force; and that the mean- 
ing of the word force is the momentum of activity. 
This is the meaning and the only meaning of the word 
causation, though the word is often used to express, 
by analogy, a fact not wholly understood. If it be 
then asked, whether the word causation had no mean- 
ing till the truth of the conservation of force was dis- 
covered, it can be replied, that this discovery brought 
to consciousness what had been latent in the soul. 
The meaning of the word causation was real, yet 



and illustration to such vast topics as that referred to in the text will be 
found discussed in the second book of this work, under the title "Analogy; " 
while the subject here touched upon will be found taken up again and 
treated more fully, in some of its relations, in the third book, under the 
general title " Problems of the Reason." 



52 THE SCIENCE OF TTTOUCHT. 

obscure, as maybe seen from the fact that men would 
use it, even though the philosophers affrmed that it had 
no meaning. Exceptions to the law of the correla- 
tion of force, and thus to the definition of causation 
which was given above, are merely apparent, and not 
real ; at least they cannot be shown to be real. They 
are like some unexplained phenomena which the 
astronomer detects among the stars. He does not 
look upon them as exceptions to the law of attraction, 
but as furnishing new fields for its application. 



THIRD. -NEGATION OF NEGATION. 

ORGANIC RELATIONS. 



We have seen that objects stand in a negative re- 
lation to themselves in accordance with which their 
very continuance leads to their change or destruction. 
The relation of cause and effect is the same negative 
relation, only the parties concerned in it are separated 
and stand over against one another. In causation 
one object stands in a negative relation, not only to 
itself, but thereby to another. Our common con- 
ception of causation is indeed that of a positive 
rather than of a negative relation. The fundamental 
notion of cause is, however, that it disturbs the ex- 
isting state of things. It overthrows the present 



FINAL CAUSE. 53 

order, and the object acted upon is no longer what it 
was before. There is, however, in this negative re- 
lation of a body to itself, a second step involved, to 
which the process itself leads us. If this change is 
involved in the nature of the body, then, in its ac- 
complishment, though in one sense it may destroy 
itself, in another and more complete sense it really 
reaches and fulfils its true nature. Thus a seed 
stands in a negative relation to itself. If it fulfils 
its nature it destroys itself. It exists as a seed no 
longer. But the real nature of the seed is to produce 
the plant. Its existence is fulfilled in that. Thus, 
while apparently destroying itself, in reality it reaches 
and accomplishes itself. Thus this negative relation 
is, by the law of limit, and that of the passing of 
limit, transformed into a positive relation. The 
negation is itself negated, and we have only positive 
affirmation. Another example of this we find in the 
death of man. A higher life springs out of it. We 
may illustrate the effect of this double negation in 
the difference between the consciousness of the ani- 
mal and that of the spiritually instructed and devel- 
oped man, in regard to death. The animal is 
unconscious of death. With the consciousness of 
death in man comes at first the terrible sense of 
negation and of destruction, until this destruction is 
itself destroyed, and a consciousness of the immortal 
life springs out of it. We here see, at a glance, the 
effect of this double negation. The animal is un- 
conscious of death; man is conscious of immortality. 
The same process is accomplished, though in a less 
striking manner, in all cases of the negative relation. 



54 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The cause, though it no longer exists as cause, is ful- 
filled in the effect. The end may be more really the 
cause than the beginning, for, in the end, the cause 
finds first its real and complete existence. This is 
what we understand by the expression, "Final 
Cause." 



A. — FINAL CAUSE. 

Where a process is carried on by means of parts 
co-operating for their own mutual support, or for the 
promotion of a common end, this composition of 
parts is called an organism, and the end for which 
they co-operate is called a final cause. The analytical 
thought of modern times finds some difficulty in con- 
ceiving of an organization as such. It is with diffi- 
culty that it gets beyond the thought of a collection 
or juxtaposition of parts. It has not reached the 
idea that the parts of an organization cannot exist 
without the whole, any more than the whole can 
exist without the parts. We meet the same relation 
on a higher plane that we found to exist between dis- 
crete and continuous extension. We saw that neither 
a point as such, nor continuous extension as such, 
can exist. The point exists only in continuous ex- 
tension; and extension, however continuous, consists 
of points. So neither the parts of an organism on 
the one side, nor the organism itself on the other, 
can have a separate existence. We can see the dis- 
tance we have passed in our inquiry by observing 
how much out of place the fundamental axiom of 
mere quantity would be at our present stage. The 









DIFFERENTIATION. 55 

fundamental axiom of quantity is that the whole is 
equal to the sum of the parts. Let there be a num- 
ber of men of equal strength. To obtain the amount 
of their working ability you would multiply the 
ability of one by the number of men. If their labor, 
however, be organized, — in other words, if the prin- 
ciple of the division of labor be adopted, — the math- 
ematical formula would fail. 

The end for which all work together, which we 
call the final cause, is really the cause. If you go to 
a certain city, your object in going is the cause of 
your movement rather than the locomotive that took 
you there. A seed is buried in the earth. The 
warmth and the moisture make it sprout into life ; 
yet if it had not this tendency to life, this final cause 
embodied in itself, the sun would have shone in vain. 
Thus, wherever it exists, the final cause is the real 
cause. In nature, in life, and in history, this is the 
working power ; this sums up all parts of the process 
in itself, and the beginning finds its real existence in 
the end, or in the process which leads to the end. 

B. DIFFERENTIATION. 

The first step in the evolution of the final cause is 
a departure from the simplicity and apparent unity of 
that in which the process is accomplishing itself. 
The seed has, shut up within it, the germ of the plant. 
The final cause of the seed, and of the changes which 
it is to undergo, is the production of the plant. The 
seed is a simple unit. The beginning of the process 
which it is its nature to fulfil is the parting of the 



5() THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

cotyledons, that is, the destruction of its unity. This 
is a type of the entire growth of the plant. There 
is a constant striving apart. The units which result 
from each division, as, for instance, the buds that come 
out on opposite or corresponding sides, themselves 
divide, and this process is continued through the 
whole growth of the plant, which becomes with 
every new stage more complicated. This process of 
differentiation takes place in all evolution. It is in- 
deed one essential element of organized growth. If 
we start from the thin and homogeneous ether, which 
may have been the germ of the world, and trace the 
course of subsequent changes and evolutions up to 
the very highest products of political association or 
human thought, w r e shall find an unceasing process 
of differentiation. For instance, in human societies, 
in the earliest period of barbarous life, every individ- 
ual, with slight exceptions, fills the same place that 
every other does. The functions of society are per- 
formed by all alike. The more complete a society 
is, the more complicated it is. Callings arc sepa- 
rated. Social functions are divided and subdivided. 
If. we stoop to the lowest form of animal life w r e find 
a sack without differentiation of organs, save that the 
side which happens to be on the inside performs cer- 
tain duties which that which chanced to be on the 
outside could perform just as well, if the relative 
position of the two were changed. Rising to the 
conception of thought itself, we find that this differ- 
entiation is the very life of the progress of thought. 
The understanding begins by detecting differences in 
what had before appeared similar, if not the same* 









INTEGRATION. 57 

and such difference it continues to discover through 
its whole existence. Thought has its law of develop- 
ment as much as the seed. Thought divides and 
branches, and evolves multitudinous diversities out 
of what had seemed a simple unit. This division is 
marked in all the forms in which thought embodies 
itself. The different parties in which a state divides 
itself are the manifestations of the different elements 
involved in the fundamental idea of the state. Phi- 
losophy takes form in opposing systems ; theology in 
conflicting sects. The idea everywhere divides it- 
self and contends with itself. A superficial glance 
at religion, at philosophy, at any manifestation of 
thought, sees only strife. Political history is only 
the petty contest of politicians. Strife without end 
and aim seems to be the law of all history. This 
law is, however, not final. This differentiation is it- 
self the reverse of what it appears. Like the nega- 
tive relation in all its forms, it passes into its opposite. 
The negation negates itself, and becomes thereby 
positive. The differentiation is only a step in the 
formation of a concrete and united whole. 

O. — INTEGRATION. 

The law of integration is everywhere present, pre- 
siding over, controlling, and directing the process of 
differentiation. The two seem at first sight utterly 
hostile, but they are merely two forms of the same 
process. To be a whole, a thing must have parts.* 

The equally mixed assemblage of elements which 

* The reader will find a full discussion of the process of differentiation 



58 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



constituted the ether out of which the worlds sprang, 
was only in the mathematical sense of the term a 
whole. Not till these confused elements had become 
to a certain extent parted and ranged, did they con- 
stitute what could be called in any higher sense a 
whole. The simple unit which a seed represents is 
only in a meagre sense a whole. As yet, it is rather 
the abstract possibility of a whole. When it has 
become a plant, when it has leaves and branches, 
then it becomes a whole, worthy of the name. This 
integration, in the lowest sense of the word, requires 
distinction and order in the arrangement of the parts. 
In the higher use of the word, it demands the co-op- 
eration of all the parts to a single end. We see this 
law of integration typically illustrated in the example 
so often referred to of the growing plant. We see, 
in this, how no part of the divergence is lost. The 
cotyledons part and fall away. The leaves, however, 
still represent this primary division. The flowers 
are a modification of the structure of the leaves. The 
fruit itself retains the marks of the divisions of the 
flower. So we find in the large study of history that 
nothing is lost. Philosophy, politics, religion, gather 
up what was vital in the systems they leave behind 

and integration in the First Principles of Herbert Spencer, who uses the 
terms, however, in a somewhat different sense from that in which they are 
here employed. It has been objected to the illustration taken from the primi- 
tive condition of the universe, according to the Nebular Theory, that this 
nebulous mass contained all the elements, that is, all the variety, afterwards 
arranged and added. But if these elements were equally divided and com- 
bined, the structure was as homogeneous as if there had been but a single 
ingredient; or we may suppose the atoms to have been originally of one kind, 
and the variety of substances to have been produced by difference in arrange- 
ment. 



KELATIONS OF THOUGHT. 59 

them. Christianity contains the transfigured forms 
of all the world's religions. The complete philosophy 
has, within itself, the life of all previous systems. 
History reconciles the claims of conflicting parties, 
and shows how neither contended wholly in vain. 



conclusion. 

A glance at the fundamental relations, or categories, 
which we have thus considered, will show that the}' 
are all modifications of a single and simple set of re- 
lations or categories. This fundamental system may 
be thus expressed : affirmation, negation, and the 
negation of the negation, which results in an affirma- 
tion higher, fuller, and more complete than the first, 
since it involves and retains all the results of the pre- 
ceding negation. The division of the categories into 
static, dynamic, and organic, is simply a making more 
concrete this fundamental division. The static rela- 
tion is the simple affirmation. The dynamic relation 
is the negative of this simplicity, while the organic 
brings back the dynamic into the limits of the static, 
being itself both static and dynamic. The divisions 
into which each of these last passes repeat the same 
process. Quantity is the negation of quality, which 
negation limit destroys, by bringing quantity itself 
into a qualitative relation. Under dynamics we have 
the twofold form of the negative relation, the nega- 
tion of which negation introduces us into the higher 



organic relations, in the form of the final cause. 
The final cause, in the realm of organic relations, at 
*irst seems to lose itself in the division and strife 



GO THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

which mark the process of differentiation, but finds 
itself again, complete and concrete, in the process of 
integration. 

These categories furnish the form and the material 
of our thought, and it is in thought that they find 
their free and conscious manifestation. Thought is 
the category of categories. All find themselves in 
thought, while the process of their development is 
the very life of thought. We have now to follow 
this process in the realm of thought. We shall start 
with the conception. In the discussion of the rela- 
tions aud process of thought upon which we are 
about to enter, it will be noticed that logical terms, 
that is, those that refer to the outward expression 
of thought, are more often used than those which 
refer to thought itself. The reason of this is, that 
since these external relations are the exact counter- 
parts and representatives of the inner, their names 
answer the same purpose that would be served by 
the names of the corresponding moments of thought, 
while at the same time they are simpler, more defi- 
nite, and involve less psychological difficulty and 
discussion. 



SECOND BOOK. 



FOEMS OF THOUGHT 



AND 



LOGICAL FORMS. 



FIRST.-CONCEPTIONS AND TERMS. 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 



The nature of thought is a matter in regard to 
which there has been much difference of opinion. 
Nothing could better illustrate the impossibility of 
settling psycological questions by mere introspection, 
than such divergence in regard to the mental pro- 
cesses which fill all our waking moments. The most 
important opinions that have been held as to the 
nature of thought are in general these : That we 
think in pictures, the conception being a form of 
imagination ; that we think in words ; and that 
thought is a mental process distinct from all others. 

In regard to each of the two views first named, an 
important distinction is to be made. It is one thing 
to say that we think by means of pictures, and 
quite another to say that our thinking is merely pic- 
torial. It is one thing to hold that we can think 
only by means of words, and another to hold that 
our thinking is merely verbal. For myself, I 
incline to the opinion that we never think without 

63 




64 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

having as a substratum or starting point for the 
thought, a mental picture, a remembered feeling, or 
a word; and that the substratum of thought may be 
indifferently one or another of these. I am sure, 
however, that the thought itself is something very 
different from the mental picture, the remembered 
feeling* or the word, which may make the thought 
possible. These may be necessary for thinking ; 
they do not constitute the thought. 

The most important of the opinions referred to is, 
that which confounds thought with mental picturing; 
for if this were true, it would follow that the range 
of thought is no greater than that of the imagina- 
tion. A little examination will show the falsity of 
this theory. How do we think, for instance, of a 
triangle in general, apart from any notion of some 
particular kind of triangle ? If the thought has any 
pictorial basis this must be one of two kinds. It 
must be either some definite form, as that of a right- 
angled triangle, or it must be a form more or less 
blurred or undefined, though it is hard to see how 
the lines of the picture could be distinct enough to 
suggest a triangle without also suggesting the kind. 
We are met, then, by the fact that the picture must 
be of some special kind of triangle; right-angled, 
isosceles, or some other. It must also be of some 
jDarticular size. The conception is of a triangle of 
any kind and of any size. Further, the picture, 
whether blurred or distinct, represents a single 
triangle ; the conception stands for all triangles. 
The picture in the mind stands, thus, for something 
that cannot be pictured. We give to it a represen- 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 65 

tative character. It is the representative of all 
triangles. It could not be this if it did not suggest 
a conception that goes beyond itself and includes all. 

There are, further, conceptions for which it seems 
impossible to find any pictorial basis. What picture 
could suggest the idea of totality, for instance ? If 
this notion has any mental substratum it would seem 
that it could be only a word. 

What is true of the mental picture, is true of the 
remembered feeling. This also needs a general 
character which the memory of no feeling can have 
when taken by itself. 

If we turn now to the assumption that words are 
essential to thought, it must be admitted that with- 
out words, by which conceptions are made distinct 
and permanent, thought would have remained in a 
very rudimentary state. By words, a man's thought 
is made clear to himself; by them it becomes the 
property of the community. By words, the thought 
of one age becomes a solid basis upon which succeed- 
ing generations may build. It has been well urged, 
however, that the common experience of seeking a 
word to express a thought shows that words are not 
an absolute necessity for thinking. It maybe added 
that no one can claim that we think in regularly 
formulated propositions; and wherever there is a 
break in the formal completeness of the proposition, 
there the thought makes a leap unaided by verbal 
expression. What particularly concerns us here, 
however, is the obvious fact, that, so far as words are 
used in thinking, they are means to thought, and not 
thought itself. In a mathematical equation the con- 



66 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

tent of the x and the ?/, the a and the b, does not 
concern us. All that is essential is the fact that the 
contents of these several letters are, or may be, 
unlike one another. In ordinary thought or speech, 
on the contrary, words are not thus formal. Each 
has a content. If we do not know its meaning, the 
word is useless. This content is a conception. 

Having thus seen that thought is not to be con- 
founded with any other form of mental action, we 
will consider its different forms and stages. 

The conception is the simplest form of thought. 
It has not necessarily any direct reference to an 
object as actually existing in the outer world. Being 
thought, the conception involves the two elements 
common to all thought, the positive and negative, or, 
as they may be otherwise named, the general and the 
limiting ; or, to give still another phrase more in ac- 
cordance with the terminology which we shall have to 
use in other portions of this work, the universal and 
the particularizing or individualizing. The sensation 
red is not a conception. When we think of red as a 
color, we have a conception of it. It involves the 
two elements, — color in general and this color in par- 
ticular. We do not, however, necessarily separate 
these two elements in our thought. We are often, 
perhaps most often, unconscious of this distinction. 
We take the conception as a whole, without regard 
to its formation. Indeed, in regard to the nature, the 
formation, and the relation of conceptions, there is 
no more fallacious guide than consciousness. Many 
processes of our thought pass at once into oblivion. 
Many change their nature when we contemplate them. 

5 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 67 

Fortunately we are not left to the varying and often 
fallacious guidance of consciousness in this matter. 
Thought at once embodies itself in language. The 
conception takes form in the term. By a term is 
meant a word, or words, by which a conception is 
expressed. Words in their formation and changes 
bear the living impress of thought, and by the study 
of words we can often settle questions that otherwise 
would be insoluble. We can thus learn more of the 
nature of the conception by studying the term which 
is its concrete expression, than by studying the con- 
ception itself. To it, therefore, we will address our- 
selves. 

A term has just been stated to be the expression 
of a conception. This is sometimes denied by those 
who affirm that the term (a word) is the name of a 
thing. The truth is that the term is immediately the 
name of a conception ; mediately it may be the name 
of a thing. If the conception stands for an outward 
object, and the term stands for the conception, the 
term, indirectly, stands also for the thing. Both of 
these statements must be kept carefully in mind. 
One of them is commonly omitted. Logicians and 
metaphysicians commonly assert that words are the 
names of conceptions. This is true ; but if it be left 
out of the account that conceptions directly, and thus 
terms indirectly, may stand for things, the discussion 
becomes partial and vague. On the other hand, Mr. 
Mill and others assert very positively that words are 
the names, not of conceptions, but of things. What 
according to this view the word is the name of, when 
there is nothing answering to it but a conception, is 



()8 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

not clear. Words follow all the varying forms of 
human thought. Human errors, human dreams, all 
express themselves in words. The word answers to 
human thought. It is a record of human thought. 
It is the name of a thought. If the thought answer 
to a thing, then the word also answers to a thing. A 
homely comparison may illustrate the whole matter. 
You stand by the sea-shore and pull a boat by means 
of a rope. Do you pull the rope, or do you pull the 
boat? Most metaphysicians, if the analogy to the 
position above described were preserved, would say 
that you pulled the rope. Mr. Mill, looking at your 
purpose and consciousness, would say that you pulled 
in the boat. If a landsman were in a boat, and 
wished it to be pulled ashore, he would throw a rope 
to some one standing by, and say, "Pull in this boat, 
please." An old salt would throw the rope on shore, 
and call on the bystander to haul m that line. Thus 
metaphysicians occupy the place of the sailor with 
whom the handling of ropes is a profession. Mr. 
Mill and those who agree with him occupy the posi- 
tion of the landsman. If the rope should break, the 
man on shore would find that it was the rope, and 
not the boat, that he was pulling. We will content 
ourselves with saying *as above, that immediately he 
pulls the rope, mediately the boat, and thus we tell 
the whole story. This may illustrate the position 
that words are immediately the names of conceptions, 
while they may be mediately the names of things. In 
this latter case there is no harm in speaking of them 
in their mediate relation, although such use is unsci- 
entific and may easily lead us into difficult v. 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 69 

The determination of this matter in the case of any 
particular word depends, first, upon the belief of the 
speaker, and, secondly, upon the facts of the external 
world. If a person uses a word, believing that the 
conception for which it stands has a counterpart in 
the outward world, he believes that the word stands 
for a thing. If the conception have such a counter- 
part, the word does stand for it. In this work I shall 
speak of the word in its popular use, as standing for 
an outward object, returning to the strict scientific 
usage where it is necessary for precision. 
We have now, however, to consider the word strictly 
as the name of a conception, and to observe .how 
language shapes itself according to the thought which 
it embodies, so that it becomes a living organism. 

So far as the Indo-Germanic languages are con- 
cerned, the word, like the conception for which it 
stands, consists in general of two elements : namely, 
one which, with reference to the group of words 
possessing the same derivation, may be called uni- 
versal ; and another, which limits this giving to it a 
particular significance. The universal element is 
represented by the root of the word. In the Indo- 
Germanic languages this has a verbal significance. 
In other words, it represents some form of activity. 
It is probable that originally this action was an out- 
ward one. The expression was, however, so large 
and vague that it could be applied to various anal- 
agous processes, even to those of the mind. The 
root of a word may thus be regarded as representing 
its more general element in two w$ys. In the first 
place, as was intimated above, its universal charac- 



70 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ter appears from the fact that the same root gives 
life to many different words in which its significance 
assumes as many different forms and applications. 
In the second place an action is something that has 
no separate existance except in our own mind. It 
is thus the result of abstraction. This verbal root 
we may compare to the nerve and artery of a bone. It 
is the vital point of it, and by it the word stands in con- 
nection with the great body of human speech. A lan- 
guage is full, rich, and living, so far as it retains its 
roots in a significant form within itself, and its words 
still consciously pulsate with their life. It is hardly 
fair to call language living- or dead, according as there 
are, or are not, living men who make it their language. 
Language is properly living that retains its connection 
with its roots. In this sense the Greek will always 
be a living language. Among modern languages, the 
German represents, to a great degree, this fulness 
of life. On the other hand, the French may repre- 
sent a derived language, that is, one that has been 
cut adrift from its roots, and is in this sense dead. 
The German shows its life in its pronunciation. The 
accent of the words follows their life, and represents 
with logical accuracy the development of the word. 
French words have no accent. By their very utter- 
ance they show that their parts have no vital con- 
nection. The German words further show their life 
by their readiness in uniting. You can graft the 
words into one another, and their lives will coalesce. 
French words show their lack of life by their lack of 
any power of combination. They will not grow to- 
gether any more than so many dead sticks. The German 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 71 

language has, further, the richness and fulness which 
spring from the vital presence of roots, whose mean- 
ing is not yet exhausted, but which are ever ready 
for new uses, and suggest more than they strictly 
express. Such language is fitted for poetry and 
philosophy, and all the higher uses of the imagina- 
tion. The French language is never less at home 
than in the flights of poetry, or the profoundness of 
philosophy. The German language is, on the other 
hand, by this very fulness, less fitted for the strict- 
ness of science. Its scientific terms are vague, and 
to an outsider somewhat ridiculous. To speak of 
hydrogen as Wasserstoff (water-stuff), and nitrogen as 
Stickstoff (stifle-stuff) , can Taardly help exciting a 
smile. The French language has all the merits 
which result from precision. The growth of its 
words in the vital, normal, and unconscious form of 
growth, has nearly reached its end. Its words have 
a distinct and definite meaning. Its science is accu- 
rate and precise to a hair. Moreover, its expres- 
sions admit infinite point and polish. They may be 
wrought and smoothed like dead bone or shell. Thus 
they are piquant, fitted for wit and for the interchanges 
of society. The French language is moreover rich 
in idioms. Idioms arise most freely when a language 
is cut loose from its original roots, and the meaning 
of the words has thus become, to some extent, arbi- 
trary. They are thrown about among one another, 
and acquire, by various chances, meanings foreign to 
the original ones. Sometimes these foreign mean- 
ings result from gross blunders. I see every day in 
my paper an advertisement of " troche powders." The 



72 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

inventor of the medicine evidently understood the 
meaning of troche to be a medicine for bronchial trou- 
bles, rather than medicine in a particular shape. An 
omnibus-maker in one of our cities, awhile ago, brought 
out a new omnibus marked in flaming letters with the 
name "Hydrant." He had seen the name on fire- 
engines, and liked it, and did not see why it would not 
look as w T ell on an omnibus. It probably suggested 
to his mind something about the hydra. Now, if 
these blunders had become incorporated into common 
speech, the words would have acquired a meaning 
utterly foreign to their organic significance ; they may 
thus illustrate one fertile sense of change in the 
meaning of w T ords, but change that could not arise 
while the words carried their root-meaning Avith 
them. Idioms that are not of the blundering sort 
add to a language vivacity and brilliancy. The effect 
of them is something like that of puns. They 
startle us with a pleasant surprise. The idioms of a 
language are not essentially different from slang. 
Slang terms are the idioms of low society. The 
French language has all the conditions necessary for 
the production of idioms, and sparkles all over with 
them. The vivacity of the French mind imparts a 
brilliancy to these idioms, and is in a peculiar manner 
at home with them. The growth and power of 
idioms may be well illustrated by the French word 
belle-mere meaning mother-in-law. The French had 
a word in common use, wdiich meant mother-in-law, 
the word maratre. This word came to be used in a 
bad sense. It became a general expression for harsh- 
ness and hardness. French politeness, or it may be 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 73 

French tenderness, substituted for it the most grace- 
ful expression that could be devised, and the maratre 
became the belle-mere. Thus idioms are what we 
may call the play of words after their regular devel- 
opment has reached its limit, or outside of this regu- 
lar development. 

The English language occupies an intermediate 
position between the French and the German. It is 
further removed from its vital roots than the German ; 
not so far as the French. It thus possesses some of 
the advantages of each. It avoids some of the 
defects of both, while at the- same time each is supe- 
rior to it in respect to its own peculiar excellence. 
The greater distance in which it stands from vital 
connection with its roots than that occupied by the 
German may be seen by comparing words in the two 
languages, and seeing how much more dwarfed is 
their meaning in the English. In the German the 
word Stall means stable. In English it is a small part 
of a stable. The German Tisch is a table. Our 
English dish shrinks into something very different. 

Words have power to us as we can trace their uni- 
versal meaning ; that is, their radical life in the limi- 
tations which they have assumed. Most words to 
most of us are dead. We associate them merely 
with hard, outward forms. Glass is a shining, trans- 
parent object. Glass, in its original use, meant 
something that had been melted. The word contains 
the genesis of the substance. It sees it emerg- 
ing, forming itself from the seething mass. In our 
use it has become cold, hard, and brittle. The word 
salmon suggests to us a savory meal. In its original 



74 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

etymological meaning, the word expresses the grand 
leap of the living fish, making magnificent headway 
against the cataract. The effect of having fresh in 
our minds the fundamental meaning of a word may 
be seen in the difference between speaking of eradi- 
cating an evil, and of rooting it out. This is the 
secret of the great power of our Saxon words. We 
may well call them pithy, for they have the pith still 
in them. 

Enough has perhaps been said to illustrate the gen- 
eral development of language from the universal to 
the particular and the individual, and to show how in 
every word the two elements that were described as 
positive and negative, or as universal and particular, 
are united. To follow this development in the deri- 
vation of words and the organization of lan^ua^e is 
beyond the scope of the present work. We will con- 
tent ourselves with considering, very briefly, these 
relations, as they embody themselves in grammatical 
forms. 

From what has been said, it will appear that 
the verb is the most purely universal of all terms. 
It implies a state or action, separate from all connec- 
tion with individuals, and in the simplest form. 
Verbs of course admit of different degrees of partic- 
ularization among themselves. To move is a more 
general term than to run, to walk, or to fly. To be 
is the most universal term, though it is not absolutely 
universal, since it particularizes being in opposition 
to non-being. It represents, however, the starting- 
point of speculative thought. The Eleatics affirmed 
to be and that only. It is the beginning of religion, 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 75 

as it is recorded in the Bible. Jehovah, or as it is 
expressed in the fir.st person, the i" am, is the name 
by which God was worshipped by the Hebrews. It 
is the beginning of speculative thought, in the individ- 
ual as well as the race. It is the starting-point of 
reason, the only absolute datum. It is the begin- 
ning, expressed or implied, of all statement. We 
say I am, he is; whatever follows is limitation or 
definition. We have, then, verbs of various grades 
of generalization from the most universal, to be, to 
those representing more particular states or actions, 
such as to slip, to strike, But in all, the verb is, 
when compared with other parts of speech, the most 
universal term. It solves the fixed, it connects those 
which had stood motionless over against one another. 
The verb is the life of the sentence. It is the rela- 
tion between its parts. And life and relation are 
more universal than that which lives and is related. 
The verb is like the attraction of the planetary system, 
which mio-ht seize a world standing aloof and immova- 
ble, shut up in itself, and whirl it away to become a 
part of the great whole, and subject to the common 
influences. So the verb breaks up the isolation of 
the objects which fill the rest of the sentence, and 
brings them into the common system of action and 
reaction. 

The limitations which the verb undergoes in con- 
nection with other words do not concern us here. 
We have here only to notice the limitations through 
which it passes in its own ilevelopment. These are 
twofold, — limitations of mode and time. The infini- 
tive is spoken of as the infinitive mode. This is not 



76 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



)OVC 



strictly correct. The infinitive is that which is above 
and behind all mode. It is the infinite, the un- 
limited. To be is not a mode or form of being. It 
is that which underlies all these forms and modes. 
To go is not a mode of going, any more than happi- 
ness is a mode or form of happiness. The infinitive, 
then, is, as its name implies, the unlimited. To un- 
derstand the theory of modes, we must remember 
that words are primarily the names, not of things, 
but of our conception of things. The mode is not 
that of being, but rather of our conception of being. 
This may exist in the intellect, in the emotions, or in 
the will. These two last modes do not imply any 
logical relation. The one would be the optative, the 
other the imperative. The optative regards its object 
either as existing, or as not existing, or as hypotheti- 
cal ; that is, the emotions regard it through the intel- 
lect. It requires, then, no separate form for its own 
expression, though such a form may be given to it. 
There are three forms, and three only, under which 
the intellect can conceive of existence. It may re- 
gard it as having objective reality, or as not having 
this, or it may regard it without reference to its re- 
ality, that is, hypothetically. We have thus three 
modes of conception, technically, though not with 
much reason, called the indicative, the conditional, 
and the subjunctive. Better names would be the 
positive, the negative, and the hypothetical. The 
positive form is thus : lie is, or lie is not. The last is 
as positive as the first, so far as the form of the verb 
is concerned. The not is merely the predicate. 
Very different is the purely negative mode, if he 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 77 

were. This implies, by its very form, that he is not. 
It implies it more strongly than the positive with the 
negative predicate, because the negative is involved 
in the word itself, is in a manner united with the 
positive. It is thus often the language of passion. 
If lie had been a man, he ivould not have done this, 
is a stronger expression of feeling than, he did it 
because he ivas no man, or because he was inhuman. 
The third mode is thus expressed : if he be. This im- 
plies nothing in regard to the actual existence or non- 
existence of the supposed case. It looks upon the 
action or state by itself, without regard to its exist- 
ence. 

Much confusion is introduced into our grammars, 
from the fact that the negative and hypothetical 
modes are regarded as distinctions not of mode but 
of time or tense. The negative mode is made the 
past tense of the hypothetical or subjunctive mode. 
The reason is, that our grammars are based more 
upon outward resemblance than inward relation. 
Thus, in the Latin grammar, the learner is confused 
by different sets of rules for the different tenses of 
the subjunctive. It must be admitted, at the same 
time, that most languages, particularly the Latin, are 
formal rather than logical; that is, they consult re- 
semblances of form, more than logical relations. In 
the German language, on the contrary, the logical law 
prevails. In this, the modes may be studied free 
from everything that is formal, in their purely logical 
relations. The fact that inflections of the negative 
mode imitate those of the past tense springs from the 
feeling that what is past is not. and can never be, 



78 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The past form, then, is the one which presented itself 
most naturally for this use. 

The fact that the hypothetical mode, when it 
resembles the present of the indicative, is more regu- 
lar than that, as in the German and English, shows 
that it is a later product. When it differs from the 
present, and assumes a form more like the future, as 
in the original form of Latin conjugation, — that is, in 
the conjugations called third and fourth, — this arises 
from the fact, that the future, being contingent and 
hypothetical, offered itself more readily for this use. 
The important point is this : the distinction between 
what we have called the negative and hypothetical 
modes is modal. The resemblance to distinctions of 
tense or time is merely the means of expressing, by 
some analogy, this modal relation. 

This is all that need occupy us as far as the devel- 
opment of the verb is concerned, because it is all 
that has a direct logical value. The whole develop- 
ment of the verb, is, however, logical, aud might be 
considered in a more extended discussion. Certain- 
ly, while logic derives such help from grammar, the 
reverse should be done, and our grammars placed 
upon a direct logical footing. 

The verb, we have seen, may be regarded as the 
most universal term. The adjective may be regarded 
as especially the particular term. It may, it is true, 
become, and sometimes is, a universal term. Its 
natural and more common use is, however, as a par- 
ticular. At least, this is what is peculiar to it when 
compared with the verb. 

Two considerations will illustrate the fact, that the 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 79 

natural use of the adjective is to develop the par- 
ticular antagonisms contained in the more universal 
verb. The first is, that adjectives are developed in 
pairs. Thus we have good and bad, fast and sloio, 
wise and foolish, hard and soft. We can, indeed, 
hardly think of an adjective, which does not at once 
suggest its antagonistic one. So common is this, that 
where an adjective does exist alone without a mate, 
it is fair to infer, either that it has lost its original 
meaning, or else that its mate has become obsolete. 
The second illustration of the peculiar tendency of 
the adjective to a particular significance, compared 
with the more general use of the verb, is the loose- 
ness with which verbs are used, and the precision 
with which adjectives are used. Each adjective not 
merely has its antagonist, but when it is used it ex- 
pressly excludes that. The verb has no such distinct 
and exclusive meaning. No matter how slow the 
movements of a person may be, he will hardly hesi- 
tate to speak of running over to see a friend. No 
matter how he may have been disturbed at his hotel, 
he will say that there is where he slept. If a person 
says that all his friends live in England or France, he 
does not mean that none of them have died. How 
different is the meaning of the adjectives which cor- 
respond to these verbs, asleep, awake, alive, dead! 
Each distinctly and carefully excludes its opposite. 
A person says that all his friends in France or Eng- 
land are alive. Here the sense is precise. None of 
them have died. It should be remarked, however, 
that the participial form of the verb is intermediate 
between the verb and the adjective. 



80 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

I have said that the adjective, though peculiarly an 
expression of a particular relation, may be used as a 
universal term. It will be clear, from what has just 
been- stated, that it never does this in the full, un- 
qualified manner that the verb does ; that is, without 
any regard to its opposite. It remains to observe 
the modifications which it uudergoes in this twofold 
use. This will explain the distinction better than any 
elaborate discussion. 

The school-boy is commonly surprised by meetiug 
in his Virgil this expression : :? Varium et mutdbile 
semper Foemina." Without regard to the meaning of 
the clause, its construction seems to oppose all the 
rules for the adjective which he has learned. The 
noun is feminine, the adjective is neuter. Nothing 
could better illustrate the truth, that the natural use 
of the adjective is to express particular, rather than 
universal relations, than the fact that cases like 
this where the language marks as plainly as it 
can the other use of the adjective stand in such 
contrast to its general use by Latin writers. Let 
us look more closely at the nature of the agree- 
ment of predicate adjectives. These horses are black. 
In this sentence the word horses is understood, o 
may be supplied. The meaning of the sentence is 
These horses am black horses. They are distiuguishe 
from white ones, or from those of any other color 
If our language admitted of adjective agreements, th 
adjective in this case should agree with its substantiv 
horses, not that substantive which is the subject o 
the sentence, but that which is understood with it. 
Take as an opposite example, Lead is heavy. We 



, 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 81 

could not here supply, or understand the substantive, 
lead, with the adjective. We cannot say lead is heavy 
lead, for the adjective has a wider sweep than the 
substantive which is supplied. The one use of the 
adjective places the object in a particular class of such 
objects. The other goes beyond the entire range of 
such objects. In the former case there should be 
agreement of the adjective with the noun, if the lan- 
guage admits it. In the latter, there is no need of 
such agreement, unless the forms of the language re- 
quire it. If there is such agreement, it is because 
the language respects the regularity of forms more 
than it does the changes of relation. Take the Latin 
clause referred to. The word Foemina could not 
be supplied with the adjectives, as is supposed by 
agreement. We could not change the sentence to 
Foemina est mutabilis, se Foemina, There is, then, 
no reason for agreement. The neuter is here regarded 
as taking the place of a noun. If any substantive 
is to be supplied, it is the neuter substantive genus. 
This might well be supplied. 

The French language, which is, more than any 
other, the language of the understanding, that is, of 
sharp distinction, delights to mark very narrowly this 
difference in the use of the qualifying adjective. 
When the adjective puts the object expressed by the 
substantive into one class of such objects, thus par- 
ticularizing to what kind of such objects it actually 
belongs, it is in the French language placed after the 
substantive. If it has not this logical force, it is 
placed before. The reason for this method of ar- 
rangement is, that the adjective, by being put after 
a 



82 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the noun, gains additional emphasis; and, as we shall 
see later, the element that reduces a conception from 
a universal to a particular receives always accentor 
emphasis, to mark the exclusion of all other members 
of the class referred to. If I say a black horse, I 
mean to contrast the animal with those of any other 
color, and to exclude the possibility of any other 
color. This emphasis of exclusion is what is ex- 
pressed in the position of the French adjective which 
has this particularizing force ; and there is hardly 
anything more interesting than to see how the laws 
of grammar, which seem at first sight so hard and 
arbitrary, are simply the laws of the expression of 
logical relations in concrete forms. 

When the adjective has not this logical force, it 
may either express something which is common to all 
individuals of the class, and thus be merely an in- 
tensive ; or, it may express the emotions excited in 
us by the . object, and thus have a merely subjective 
use. Thus, all scholars are more or less learned ; all 
men are not. If I say a learned man, I make a dis- 
tinction between him and other men who are not 
learned. If I say a learned scholar, the adjective has 
merely an intensive force. The French say, there- 
fore, Un liomme savant, and Un savant ecolier. 
Un homme grand distinguishes the tall man from 
others. Un grand homme expresses simply my ad- 
miration. IS homme pauvre describes the man's 
actual state in contrast with the rich. Le pauvre 
homme expresses simply my pity. Words express- 
ing shape, color, and the like, qualities which we at 
once recognize as peculiar to the object, have most 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 83 

obviously a particularizing force, and take their place 
uniformly in accordance with this. Words that ex- 
press qualities which imply research, in regard to 
which our judgment may be wrong, or different from 
that of others, are naturally subjected less strictly 
to this rule. But the shade of meaning which the 
adjective has varies according to its position, even 
where this is left free. French authors often avail 
themselves of this power. One, by putting more 
often his adjective before the noun, gives a richness 
and depth to his style ; while another, by the oppo- 
site course, gains an air of objective reality and 
logical accuracy. 

We have seen that the adjective may be either a 
particular or a universal term ; that is, it may put 
the object spoken of into a particular class of such 
objects, expressing a quality more general than the 
whole class. In the former case, there should be 
agreement of the predicate adjective with its noun; 
in the latter, there need not. A study of grammati- 
cal forms shows us that a predicate adjective may be 
regarded as a universal term, even when it puts the 
object spoken of into a particular class of such ob- 
jects ; that is, the general quality may be affirmed 
without regard to other objects of the same class. 
An example may show the necessity of this. Take 
such a sentence as this, These horses and cows are 
black. Here, certainly, we do not mean simply these 
horses and cows are black horses and cows ; we mean 
to establish something in common between them, to 
reduce the whole under one term. The adjective 
must, then, in this case, be regarded as a compara- 



84 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

tively universal term ; if it mast be so in this case, 
it may be in any other. This is the view which 
the German language, the most philosophical of all 
languages, — that is, the language most under the con- 
trol of the reason, as the term will hereafter be de- 
fined, as the French is the one most under the control 
of the understanding, — takes of the adjective in the 
predicate. It gives the adjective in its ground-form, 
with no agreement of termination. It thus represents 
the predicate adjective as a universal term, without 
regard to other objects of the class to which the sub- 
ject of the clause belongs. 

Much of what has been said of the relation of the 
adjective to the substantive may be extended to that 
of the adverb to the verb. The adverb limits the 
verb, reducing it from the universal to the partic- 
ular. 

The verb has been defined to be the most univer- 
sal term. The adjective represents the particular. 
Neither the verb nor the adjective can ever be an in- 
dividual term. This is peculiar to the substantive. 
This alone can represent the individual. It may, it 
is true, be used as a universal, or as a particular, 
term, but when compared with the parts of speech 
before referred to, its relation is rather that of the 
individual. The individual stands not merely in the 
relation of the one to the many, but of the concrete 
to the " abstract. The verb by itself expresses only 
action, general and vague. It attaches itself to 
nothing and springs from nothing. It can have no 
concrete, or, what is the same thing, no actual ex- 
istence without the substantive. It is so with the 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 85 

adjective. The adjective expresses an abstract qual- 
ity. This quality can have no existence by itself. 
It must belong to something. This thing is repre- 
sented by the substantive. 

While the substantive may be regarded as occupy- 
ing this individual relation, it yet involves within 
itself the possibility of assuming any logical relation. 
It may be used as universal, particular, or individual. 
We have, then, to consider the substantive in these 
three relations, and the manner in which it is reduced 
from one to the other. Our grammars sometimes 
speak loosely of two kinds of substantives, proper 
and common. The common noun is the name of a 
class; the proper, of an individual. This is an ar- 
rangement to which the low standard of thought 
would naturally lead. It leaves out of the account 
abstract nouns, — that is, absolute qualities. It rec- 
ognizes no absolute virtue, no absolute truth. There 
are only truths and virtues. More commonly, how- 
ever, three kinds of substantives are recognized, the 
proper, the common, and the abstract. These repre- 
sent severally, the individual, the particular, and the 
universal. Here our grammars are apt to stop. But 
take the word, iron, silver, or gold. These are certain- 
ly not proper nouns. They are not names of individ- 
uals. They are not common nouns. There is only 
one gold. They are not abstract nouns. Our eyes 
have seen these metals. Our hands have handled 
them. Take also the name of any disease, or of any 
action. We should have the same difficulty in redu- 
cing either of them to the three heads beyond which 
our grammars do not go. The a priori method is the 



86 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

only one that can divide nouns by a complete and 
exhaustive classification. We have, then, first, indi- 
viduals and classes of individuals. The understand- 
ing divides these individuals into their elements. 
Each possesses, on the one side, certain qualities, and, 
on the other side, a substance or material in which 
these qualities exist. The union of these two ele- 
ments forms the object. A stove has on the one 
side its size and its shape. On the other side, iron is 
the material which is the basis and substance of these 
qualities. We have, then, besides proper and com- 
mon nouns, these two other kinds, which result from 
the analysis of the understanding, names of quali- 
ties, and names of material. Still further, these bod- 
ies exist now in one state, now in another, now in a 
transition from one to the other. This gives us two 
new sorts of nouns, — those implying state, and those 
that express any form of activity. We have thus six 
classes of nouns. There is no danger of any more 
being discovered to increase the number. The four 
last would, like the abstract nouns of our grammars, 
most naturally fall under the head of universal terms. 
We have thus considered the difference in the noun 
itself. We have now to consider how any given noun 
may be reduced from a more general to a more par- 
ticular or individual form. First, we must consider 
its reduction to a more particular signification. Two 
ideas or conceptions must limit one another, in order 
that there may be reality, just as two lines must meet 
to form a corner. In representing this process by 
language, the word which represents the leading con- 
ception is said to be limited by the other. The most 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 87 

obvious form of this limitation is by the adjective. 
Thus, we say ahorse. Limiting our thought to a par- 
ticular kind of horses, we say a black horse. The last 
expression is more particular than the first. The same 
result is, however, produced by combination with 
another substantive. We say, thus, a truck-horse, a 
wine-glass. These two forms of limitation must 
not be regarded, however, as identical. They are 
often so regarded by those who write for effect, who 
imitate, as they suppose, the structure of the German 
language. They form compound nouns, in utter 
unconsciousness that their meaning is any way differ- 
ent from that of a noun limited by an adjective, or in 
any other method. A compound noun has no right 
to existence, until the conception for which it stands 
is a fixed and a peculiar one. If a truck-horse were 
merely a common horse used for a special purpose, 
if a saddle-horse differed from others only by a mo- 
mentary use, they would have no right to be repre- 
sented each by a recognized and permanent word. 
This right is gained by the fact that each does express 
a conception as distinct and permanent as the word. 
If we express the universal by its initial letter U, and 
the particular by its initial P, then the formula for 
each compound noun will be P U. This formula is 
almost universal in every logical language. Very 
rarely, in the Lido-Germanic languages, are words 
formed by mere accretion. The relation between the 
two members of a composition is merely formal. 
Each may in turn serve as the universal, each in turn 
as the limiting, word. We can say horse-cart ov cart- 
horse. In each case the formula is the same. The 



88 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

last word of the composition expresses a general con- 
ception; the first limits it. The symbol given above, 
P U, may also stand for the adjective with the sub- 
stantive, with this difference, that one is a permanent, 
the other a changing, composition. 

This logical relation is expressed by the accent. 
The reduction of the universal to the particular is 
carried on by means of opposition or exclusion. This 
is represented in the formation of words. I speak of 
glasses. They arc of many kinds. If I say toine- 
glass, I exclude all other kinds. This exclusion and 
opposition is what is signified by emphasis, and in 
many cases by accent. The accent on the first of the 
elements of compound words, in the German and 
English languages, expresses the exclusion of all 
other forms of the general conception. 

This signification of emphasis, or of stress of voice 
of all kinds, is one of great importance, and of strictly 
logical signification. If we hear a man saying em- 
phatically, it is so, we take it for granted that he has 
been contradicted, or that he expects to be. Empha- 
sis may be grammatical or rhetorical ; it, how r ever, 
always implies opposition. Take such a sentence as 
this : You speak well. The grammatical emphasis 
falls upon well. This limits the conception in the verb 
speak. Rhetorically the accent may fall anywhere 
else. You speak well, implies an opposition between 
your speaking and your action. 

Accent may be of two sorts. It may be logical or 
euphonious. In a language derived from foreign 
roots, where words do not coalesce into compounds, 
there can be no logical accent. The French and the 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 89 

German nations are the most logical of all. In the 
German language, the logical principle of accent 
reigns almost universally, for nearly all its words are 
logical compositions. In the French language there 
is no accent. The words are not logically com- 
pounded, and have thus no right to be accented. The 
accent in the Spanish and Italian languages adds 
simply to their euphony. It is superficial ; that is, it 
has no connection with the significance of the words. 
The language sounds better for them, but it has no 
fuller meaning. It is melodious, not harmonious. 

We must carefully distinguish between accent and 
the semblance of it produced by the diminished force 
with which terminations and similar affixes are 
spoken. In the word garden, the first syllable is 
not accented. It is spoken with no more force than 
the monosyllable guard would be spoken. 

Words, then, imitate in their composition the actual 
realities of things. Objects are distinguished from 
one another by limitation. One color, for instance, 
is produced by excluding the other elements of light. 
Without this exclusion there would be no color. 
Limitation is, by its very nature, exclusion; as when 
I put a fence round my land to shut out trespassers. 
Hegel remarks that zoology has fallen in with the 
course of nature in dividing the genera of animals by 
their teeth and claws. It is by means of these, that 
each genus has preserved itself, and continues to 
maintain its separate existence. The extinct genera 
have become so because they had not sufficient of 
this opposing force wherewith to maintain themselves 
in the world. It is so with nations. Each preserves 



90 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

itself by its power to maintain itself in the world. 
A nation that exists by sufferance can hardly be called 
a nation. All of this warfare *for being, this existing 
by exclusion, that which Darwin describes so forcibly 
as the struggle for existence, on which is based the 
natural selection by which one individual or class is pre- 
served and another destroyed, — all this is expressed 
by the accent with which a term, limited to a specific 
meaning, excludes all other uses. What in the 
spoken language is expressed by emphasis is in the 
written language expressed by position. A word 
may be emphasized by being placed at the beginning 
or at the end of a clause or sentence. All languages 
allow a certain play of this kind, but in this respect 
the Greek stands pre-eminent. The Greek sentence 
is in its structure as flexible, as expressive of every 
delicate shade of thought and feeling, as the human 
voice could be. 

We have seen how the universal may be reduced 
to a particular ; Ave have now to see how it may be 
reduced to an individual. This is done by means of 
words having an individualizing significance, such as 
demonstrative pronouns, and possessive adjective 
pronouns, and by case. The limitation by pronouns is 
clear without illustration. There is an important dif- 
ference between limiting a substantive by the genitive 
of another substance, and limiting it by an adjective. 
The words of a king are not always kingly, the acts 
of a man are not always manly. The genitive marks 
what belongs to the individual ; the adjective what 
belongs to a class. We have seen before, that lan- 
guage has no right to form a compound noun until 



LOGIC OF LANGUAGE. 91 

there is some permanent conception to be expressed 
by it. We now see that it has no right to form an 
adjective of a substantive, until what pertains to this 
substantive is found to have a specific difference from 
what does not pertain to it. Of all the correspond- 
ence of a public officer, only that can be called official 
which he writes in his official capacity. This, too, is a 
matter in which affectation often sins against the genius 
of language.* We see also the increased power 
which is attained by this use of the adjective. There 
is a difference between the American people and the 
people of America. The phrase People of America 
implies simply an individual geographical relation. 
The phrase American people suggests the idea of 
the nation. It brings with it all the peculiar good or 
evil connected with it. It is remarkable that, with 
the exception of the American Indians aud the peo- 
ple of the United States, no one of the other nations 
on the continent is habitually designated by the ad- 
jective American. In our difficulties with Mexico, 
the inhabitants of the United States were alone called 
Americans. The Mexicans have, it is true, qualities 
which distinguish them from other nations ; they have, 
however, nothing which separates them, as a distinct 
class, from the inhabitants of other continents. The 
United States, alone, have become conscious of, and 
are the expression of, the American idea. The virtues, 



* Especially does the German language, in spite of that philosophical 
character which I have noticed so frequently, often violate this rule. We 
see so often such a phrase as this: " Cotta 'scher Verlag." It is as if we should 
speak in English of the " Appletonian" or the "Spencerian Bookstore." 



92 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

and the faults, the whole national spirit of this peo- 
ple, could not exist on the other side of the ocean. 

It is not worth while to do more than refer to the 
exceptions to this principle. The French cannot form 
readily adjectives from nouns. The preposition de is 
with them the representative of the genitive and 
ablative cases, as well as of the Latin preposition de. 
De, with the article, expresses the individual relation ; 
without it, the particular. We have also, in Latin, the 
rule for the genitive or ablative, expressing property, 
character, etc. In spite of such occasional exceptions, 
the general principle is true, that if the letter I stand 
for the word individual, the genitive, with a substan- 
tive limited by it, may be expressed by the formula 
I U, the genitive reducing the universal to the indi- 
vidual. 

By this examination of the development, the 
changes, and the relations of language, we have seen 
in objective reality the manner in which, in every 
conception, the two elements of the universal and the 
particularizing, or of the universal and individualizing, 
co-exist, and the changing relations which these as- 
sume, as the conception develops itself in the fulness 
of its many-sided life. 



JUDGMENTS AND PKOPOSITIONS. 93 



SECOND. -JUDGMENTS AND PROPOSITIONS. 



A word, as we have seen, represents a permanent 
conception which, as such, has both generic and spe- 
cific characteristics connected with it. These char- 
acteristics are at once suggested by the word, and in 
general without a parti ular analysis of it. The word 
Englishman, or wineglass, suggests each its distinct 
conception, as much as the word man, or glass, and 
probably, for the most part, with as little thought of 
its derivation. It su^ests, also, characteristics not 
necessarily contained in either part of the word. 
Each word suggests a distinct and specific conception. 
A substantive with an adjective suggests a conception 
already formed by the mind, but which has not this 
specific and permanent character. It contains also, 
in general, little that is not contained in the separate 
words. It expresses this conception without any re- 
gard to its external truth. 

A proposition utters a conception in the manner, 
if not at the time, of its formation, and at the same 
time it decides in regard to its objective reality. The 
parts of which the conception is composed are 
brought together in our sight ; at the same time its 
truth is affirmed. One may say A wise man, A beauti- 
ful picture, and we have merely a floating conception, 
which admits neither of opposition nor defence. If 



94 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



one say, however, The man is wise, The picture is beau- 
tiful, we have something, which, if it have no objec- 
tive reality answering to it, is worse than useless 
something which may admit of denial and support. 
It may be thus the centre of strife, and if true may 
increase our knowledge or advance our prosperity. 

With the proposition, therefore, Ave first enter the 
realm of outward reality. In a proposition, then, 
the elements which are united in the term stand over 
against one another, while at the same time their 
mutual relation is affirmed. As the term represents 
and corresponds to a conception, so a proposition rep- 
resents and corresponds to a judgment. A judg- 
ment is the mental action which expresses itself in the 
proposition. To understand the nature of a judg- 
ment, we need, then, only study the nature, the ele- 
ments, and the relations of the proposition. 

A proposition consists of three parts, namely, 
that of which something is affirmed ; this is called 
the subject : that which is affirmed of the subject ; 
this is called the predicate : and the connecting or 
affirming particle, which is called the copula, which 
is sometimes, however, not distinctly expressed, the 
affirmation being included .in the predicate. This is 
the case when the predicate is itself a verb. 

The formula, then, for every proposition is this: 
The subject is the predicate. This, though the abso- 
lute formula of all propositions, is in itself false. 
From the definitions which have been given, it may 
be seen that the subject and predicate are very differ- 
ent from one another. They stand, indeed, in a pure 
antagonism to each other. We must, therefore, go be- 



c- 



PROPOSITIONS. 95 

hind this formula, and see what is represented by the 
subject, and what by the predicate, and how far their 
identity may be affirmed. A conception is made up 
of the two elements, which, taking their extreme 
forms as representative, we have called the universal 
and the individual. In other words, it is a limited 
universal. If the proposition corresponds to a con- 
ception, it must contain these two elements. We 
have, then, another formula for the proposition, which 
gives us much more insight into its nature than the 
former. It is this : The individual is the universal. 
Thus, in the proposition The man is wise, man is an 
individual term, wise is a more universal quality 
affirmed of him ; so that the abstract formula would 
be as stated above : The individual is the univer- 
sal. 

All that is meant by the formula just given is, 
that the predicate is more universal than the subject, 
and this is true of all logical propositions. Although 
the predicate may be an adjective, and thus, as we 
have already seen, a particular term, it is always 
more general than the subject. If I say A wise 
man, the word man is limited in its signification by 
the word wise. The universal, man, is reduced to 
the particular, wise man. But when I say The man 
is wise, man is already individualized by the article, 
so that the particularization, which in the case of the 
descriptive adjective is a limitation, becomes, in the 
case of the predicate adjective, a generalization. 
Thus, in every proposition, either the subject sub- 
stantive is thus limited, or else the predicate adjec- 
tive goes beyond, or is supposed to go beyond, the 



96 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



tift 



whole class to which the object belongs : either it 
of the nature of the phrase, These men are wise, 
or of this, Man is rational. 

Mr. Mill, indeed, in his able and searching review 
of the Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, denies 
that when a quality is affirmed of any individual, or 
any class of individuals, we go beyond the relation 
directly before us. The example which he uses is 
this : All oxen mminate. The relation, he says, of 
this attribute to this subject, is the entire matter 
of judgment. The phrase, Oxen have horns, he 
would, doubtless, explain in the same way, as well 
as any similar judgment. I have stated before, that 
in these matters our consciousness is entirely un- 
trustworthy. We cannot, by observation, detect the 
quiet and secret operations of the mind. In this 
case w 7 e must turn to the revelations of language, 
which expose the secret processes of the thought 
with the same naive fidelity with which the rocks 
reveal the tracks of animals long extinct. In this 
case the verdict of language is decisive and unmis- 
takable. Few languages, indeed, have sufficient 
delicacy and logical accuracy to note such facts, but 
the French and German languages have these quali- 
fications, and representing, as they do, minds the 
most unlike, they may represent all intermediate 
minds. The French language, in all such cases 
where it is possible, that is, where the predicate is 
a noun or a pronoun, uses the partitive form. Mr. 
Mill, in the phrase, Oxen have horns, would affirm 
that the thought does not go beyond oxen and their 
horns. The French language says, Les boeufs out 



PKOPOSITIONS. 97 

des comes, thus photographing the unconscious gen- 
eralization of the mind. Mon frere a du courage, — 
in this phrase we have the same fact. It is not, 
indeed, necessary to multiply examples. All that is 
needed is to note, as we have done, their application 
to the question at issue. The German language is 
equally decisive, though less obviously so. The 
reader has only to make it clear in his own mind, 
that the absence of the article in the German is 
equivalent to the partitive form of the French, to be 
convinced that its verdict is the same. Die Ochsen 
haben Homer, says the German, with a predicate as 
truly partitive as that of the French phrase above 
given. 

It will be seen that the formula, The individual is 
the universal, is not the only proposition that could 
be affirmed in regard to the same elements with equal 
truth. We may say, with equal accuracy, the indi- 
vidual is the individual, or, the universal is the uni- 
versal. The universal is the individual we cannot 
say. In the two former cases, however, as there is 
no distinction of subject and predicate, the formula 
becomes useless, and may be cast aside. We have 
then, in their place, the mere proposition of identity, 
of which the formula may be stated very simply, — 
a is a. This proposition of identity has been re- 
garded by logical writers, even by Hegel, as empty 
and barren. It is not a logical proposition, for the 
relations of thought are entirely those of different 
degrees of generalization, and logical propositions 
answer only to these. Still, however, we shall un- 
derstand better the strictly logical proposition if 

7 r~ 



98 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

we make a short examination of this proposition 
of identity. We shall find that, notwithstanding the 
emptiness of its form, it is of great importance. 

A. THE PROPOSITION OF IDENTITY. 

The examples commonly given of the proposition 
of identity are such empty phrases as, An elephant is 
an elephant, and the like. It is evident, however, 
that the proposition is idle, except when the two 
elements of the proposition, though really identical, 
are yet different in expression. The proposition, 
John is man, is not a proposition of identity, for the 
two terms do not cover each other. John does not 
exhaust the possibilities of manhood, while, at the 
same time, he possesses attributes not essential to 
this. A complete definition of any object would ap- 
proach more nearly the proposition of identity. In 
this the two elements, the definition and the thing de- 
fined, would seem, at first sight, to cover each other. 
Yet each point in the definition would be equivalent 
to a single logical proposition of which the parts 
would not cover each other.; and, on the other side, it 
would be impossible to exhaust an object, save by a 
definition that should go into almost infinite minute- 
ness. And even if this were done, the result would 
not be identical with the object itself, for it would 
lack the element of oneness or wholeness. It would 
be like the fragments of a watch when compared with 
the watch itself. It is evident, then, that the propo- 
sition of identity cannot exist in regard to concrete 
objects. We must seek it in a realm where equality 



LOGIC OF MATHEMATICS. 99 

is identity. This would be a realm where only for- 
mal relations are regarded. This is the realm of 
mathematics. Because, when expressed in the ab- 
stract form, — a is a, — the proposition cf identity 
is meaningless, we must seek its true use in those 
cases where the identity exists, but is expressed in 
different forms. Thus, instead of the formula given 
above, we may say, x is a, and because, in mathe- 
matics, identity is equality, we may adopt the mathe- 
matical formula x = a. If the statement that, in 
mathematics, equality and identity are the same, needs 
explanation or proof, these may be found in the fact 
that mathematics is the science of forms, and that it 
has one absolute expression for all similar forms. In 
number, one or twenty is identical with every other 
one or twenty. There is but one unit. So in weight. 
There is but one pound, it matters not whether of 
gold or of lead. As there is but one pound, every 
pound is identical with every other. The same is 
true of all other forms of measurement. The lan- 
guage of the vulgar is, in this respect, more philosoph- 
ical than that of the learned, and has, besides, the 
authority of the cognate and philosophical German 
language. The rustic speaks of twenty bushel of 
corn, of five cord of wood. The critical man of edu- 
cation smiles contemptuously and says, bushels and 
cords. The rustic is theoretically right. No matter 
how often the measurement may be applied, there is 
but one bushel and one cord. 

X= a is, then, the formula for the proposition of 
equality, or the mathematical proposition. With this 
must be associated the corresponding propositions of 



100 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

inequality, which are very different, it must be observed, 
from unequal propositions. These are thus written: 
x > «, and x < a. Within these limits mathematics 
as such is strictly confined, and from this it gains its 
unerring accuracy. It is the most accurate, because 
it is the most abstract, of sciences. 

In the definitions of this science we find the propo- 
sition of identity. This is true of no other defini- 
tions. A straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points. This statement is not a logical proposi- 
tion. Neither element is individual, neither is uni- 
versal, when compared with the other. The two 
terms absolutely cover one another. There is no 
straight line which is not the shortest distance be- 
tween the points. The shortest distance between the 
points is always a straight line. The definition in- 
cludes also every element in the thing defined. It 
tells the whole story. It is thus a proposition of 
identity. The difference between the two kinds of 
propositions will be seen by comparing the one first 
given with this, — The dog is a quadruped; in this 
the two terms do not cover one another. There are 
many quadrupeds which are not dogs. Or take a 
more abstract definition of science : A quadruped is 
an animal that has four feet. Here the two terms do 
not cover each other. There is no animal which has 
four feet and nothing else. The term quadruped is 
abstract, while all animals are concrete. It may be 
said, indeed, that a circle has many properties not in- 
cluded in its definition. Very true ; but you can con- 
struct a perfect circle, without other data than those 
contained in the definition, which sufficiency is true 



LOGIC OF MATHEMATICS. 101 

of no other than mathematical definitions. In mathe- 
matics we have only abstraction, or, rather, there is no 
difference . between the abstract and the concrete. 
Every straight line is at once abstract and concrete. 
This is true of the starting-points in mathematics, 
and, throughout, the propositions that involve any 
difference play a subordinate part. 

What is true of the definitions is equally true of 
the axioms of mathematics. They are the most ab- 
stract and the simplest statements of the proposition 
of equality. It is because this is the science of 
equality, that it admits in so great a degree of axioms. 
The axiom, that the whole is equal to the sum of the 
parts, or that the whole is greater than any one of its 
parts, is involved in every mathematical proposition. 
We have already seen that this proposition is true 
only in the mathematical sense. It partakes, indeed, 
of the nature of a definition, almost as much as of 
that of an axiom. 

The mathematical axioms are often taken as ex- 
amples of self-evident truth. The fact is that they 
depend upon the perception of equality, and of this 
alone. They have their unerring accuracy, because 
the science deals with abstractions, and no disturb- 
ing forces can ever be introduced to mar the result. 
That power by which we say in any case, always, 
that is, by which we announce from any number of 
instances a general law, is not to be considered here. 
We have here to do only with that element which 
adds their peculiar accuracy to these mathematical 
truths, and which enables us to announce the law as 
certainly from a single case as from five hundred. It 



102 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

is, I repeat, because in this science we deal with ab- 
stractions, from which every disturbing force is shut 
out by the very supposition. In any other science, 
a proposition as carefully guarded would be as self- 
evident and as universal. Thus the proposition that 
a body at rest will continue at rest, unless disturbed 
by some outward force or inward change, is axiomat- 
ic. Mathematics, as such, does not admit of reason- 
ing. We may therefore consider, in this place, what 
answers to the process of reasoning in logic. The 
difference between the two will be clearly seen when 
we come to speak of the nature of the reasoning pro- 
cess. What answers to this in the mathematical 
science is only a continuation and succession of per- 
ceptions of equalit}'. It depends upon these axioms, 
that Two bodies equal to the same are equal to each 
other, and, that If equals he added to equals the result 
will be equal. As is well maintained by Schopen- 
hauer, we do not, in performing a mathematical prob- 
lem, reason from the truth of these axioms ; we per- 
ceive the truth of the relations they express every 
time afresh. As we had before a proposition of 
which the two terms were equal or identical, so here 
we have what answers to a syllogism in which the 
three terms are equal. The mathematical process 
consists in a series of equations or propositions of 
equality, so arranged that their elements are con- 
fronted at last in their simplest state, and the two 
statements which we wish to prove identical are 
shown to be so. Mathematics can thus discover noth- 
ing. It can demonstrate what is capable of such 
demonstration. The reasoning power must set an 



LOGIC OF MATHEMATICS. 103 

aim before it, or it is useless. At every step in the 
mathematical process roads branch out in all direc- 
tions ; it is the reasoning power, not the mathemati- 
cal, that determines which shall be taken. In other 
words, an almost unlimited multitude of equations 
can be formed. The end in view determines which 
shall be selected. Thus, if we wish to determine the 
relation of the angles of a triangle to one another, we 
subdivide the angles, we make new angles, we bring 
those together which we see to be equal, and, by this 
process repeated, we come at last to the equation 
which we seek, and discover that the three angles are 
together equal to two right angles. This last equa- 
tion is not an intuitive perception. Taken by itself, 
it has no support from the perception of equality. 
All that this power of perception can accomplish is 
to affirm that the truth of each previous equation 
rests upon its necessary identity with the one before 
it. It may be, and very probably is, true, as is in- 
sisted on by Schopenhauer in his very brilliant and 
interesting discussion, that, at least by some minds, 
mathematics, including geometry, might be so studied 
and taught that not merely the necessity but the re- 
ality of the equality should be seen at every step. It 
is impossible to understand and account for the rapid 
processes of some mathematical prodigies by any other 
hypothesis. The truth is, however, that it is not so 
studied and taught at present. 

When Newton demonstrated the great law of attrac- 
tion, the reason had first announced it. To demon- 
strate it, he arranged a series of equations, till he had 
one which showed what is the distance which a body 



104 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

as distant as the moon would fall toward the earth in a 
given time. By another series of equations, he found 
the distance which the moon approached the earth in 
the same time. He then united these two results in 
a final equation, which was the result sought from the 
beginning. The mathematician is like a man travel- 
ling through a strange country. Roads branch out in 
all directions. He knows the point of the compass 
towards which he is aiming, and selects road after 
road as it promises to lead him thither. Logic is 
thought. It is not an instrument of thought, but the 
process of thought. Mathematics is an instrument 
of thought. It is a sort of machine by which the 
crude and imperfect results of thought are taken and 
disentangled, and arranged in such a way that the 
thought can act upon them most readily. At the mo- 
ment when the concrete realities with which thought 
busies itself assume the form of figures and letters, 
thought ceases. It does not begin again till these 
realities, purified, disentangled, and arranged, throw 
oif the mask of figures and letters and assume their 
true form. What the table of logarithms is to mathe- 
matics, is mathematics itself to logic. 

If mathematics is a machine, it is the most perfect, 
beautiful, and wonderful machine that the wit of man 
ever devised. We cannot enough admire the wide- 
ness of its sweep, or the unerring accuracy of its 
results. It is only when it would raise itself above 
thought, on account of this accuracy, or when it would 
set itself forth as the model or type of thought, that 
we must check its pretensions. It is accurate only 
because it is abstract. Strike out the fulness, the 



UNEQUAL PROPOSITIONS. 105 

concreteness, the manifold reality of thought, and it 
can be as accurate and unerring as mathematics. In- 
troduce this fulness into mathematics and it is lost. 
It is like a hound that loses in the trodden road the 
scent of the footsteps which it has traced through the 
wilderness. 

The glory, then, of mathematics is its accuracy. 
Its poverty and its weakness arise from its abstract- 
ness. Its accuracy, which is its strength, also de- 
pends upon this abstractness. This becomes a lack, 
only when it seeks to go beyond its proper sphere, as 
in the philosophy of Spinoza, where it would apply 
its method to the grandest and most concrete objects 
of thought. Within its proper limits, its abstract- 
ness constitutes its beauty and its perfection. 

It must be carefully observed, that, in what has 
been said, reference was had, not to the mathematical 
sciences, but to the strictly mathematical element in 
them. There is as great a distinction between math- 
ematics and the mathematical sciences as there is be- 
tween induction and the inductive sciences. Practi- 
cally, few cases of induction do not involve, to a 
greater or less extent, deductions ; so few mathemat- 
ical processes do not involve some strictly logical 
procedure. 

B. UNEQUAL PROPOSITIONS. 

The absolute formula of the proposition we have 
seen to be this, The subject is the predicate. In the 
mathematical proposition this is strictly true. The 
subject and the predicate are absolutely equal and 



[06 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

identical. In the logical proposition we have already 
substituted for the formula thus given, this more per- 
fect one, The individual is the universal. This is the 
type of every logical proposition. We have already 
left the simple truth and accuracy of mathematics. 
Our fundamental and typical proposition is false. 
The individual is not the universal. The universal 
stretches far beyond the individual. A single mau 
does not exhaust the possibilities of humanity. A 
single animal does not exhaust the possibilities of 
animal life. From this springs all that is false and 
imperfect in thought and in the science of logic that 
corresponds to it. Instead of propositions of identity, 
we have unequal propositions. This difference is not 
temporaiy or accidental. The individual is not, and 
cannot be, the universal. As the glory of mathemat- 
ics springs from its poverty, so the glory of logic, 
which is the science of thought, springs from the di- 
vergence and falsity which we have just contemplated. 
The elements of thought, the elements even of the 
proposition, do not stand fixed and lifeless, over 
against each other. Thought does not, like math- 
ematics, have to do with dead and fixed forms. 
Thought is a living and endless process. In the di- 
vergence and falsity spoken of above lies the germ of 
this endless life. The individual is not the univer- 
sal, but it will be. Logic is sometimes taunted with 
being a progress into the infinite. This is its highest 
pride. Thought rushes from step to step, from form 
to form, striving to subdue this great discord. It 
seeks ever to find the universal in the individual, to 
lift the individual to the universal. So soon as any 



UNEQUAL PROPOSITIONS. 107 

point is reached, after all its pains and labor, it finds 
the gulf as wide as ever. 

This is not true of thought only, but, because 
thought is one with nature and history, it is true of 
these also. This, which is the moving power of 
thought, is the moving power of the universe. Ev- 
erywhere there is the same breach, the same struggle. 
Everywhere the universal strives to shape itself in 
the individual, and everywhere, failing in its aim, it 
breaks to pieces its own work, and presses onward to 
new forms. Everywhere the individual strives to lift 
itself up to become one with the universal, and at 
every step is as far from it as at the first. In thought, 
this process comes to its consciousness. In logic, it 
finds its expression and its formula. 

It is commonly thought that the proposition is the 
arbitrary bringing together of what is outward and 
distinct. The quality, it is fancied, exists loosely in 
my thought; the subject exists outside of me. By 
the proposition I bring the two together. This is 
not so. The subject divides itself into its qualities 
and various processes in order to sum itself up at 
last in the concrete unity of its being. Logic imi- 
tates this process. The proposition is the simplest 
statement of it. The plant grows; the plant is green; 
the plant has leaves. This is not my work, but 
nature's. 

The great fault of the common logic, next to that 
by which it fails to perceive the great law of differ- 
ence stated above, is, that it places all propositions 
on a level. It thus loses the very foundation of its 
own system. If the proposition be the expression 



108 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of a process, we must expect to find this process 
running through the proposition. Or if this be 
not so obvious at the first sight, the least practised 
thinker can see the great difference between such 
propositions as, The rose is red, and The rose is 
beautiful; between saying, A horse is useful, and 
Self-sacrifice is noble. Nothing shows the poverty 
of the common logic so much, or at least so clearly, 
as that all such propositions as these are classed to- 
gether. They rest on entirely different bases. The 
proposition that quinine is a specific for the intermit- 
tent fever is the result of a very different process of 
thought from that on which rests the proposition 
that Kaphael's painting of the transfiguration is a 
master-piece of art. There arc three ways in which 
bodies may be regarded. The first is, as they present 
themselves directly to the senses. We may regard 
this phase of the object as its abstract individuality. 
Its color and form have no reference or relation, at 
least none that is obvious, when they are considered 
thus abstractly, to other objects. This, however, is not 
the only method of the existence of a body. It has 
manifold relations with objects about it. This is the 
next form under which it presents itself to us. We 
see it no longer in its abstract solitariness. Its being 
is divided among other beings. It has its system of 
action and reaction. But it does not lose itself in 
these relations. It has still its root in the common 
being. It has the end for which it was formed. 
This last constitutes its real and concrete being. This 
real being, this inner nature, by which it not only 
acts and reacts, but by which it is, constitutes the 



DIVISION OF PROPOSITIONS. 109 

third and highest form under which we contemplate 
it. This real and highest being we express by the 
words, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. By these 
words, an object is taken out of the sphere of finite 
relations, and lifted up into that of the absolute rela- 
tions, in which first it has its reality. We have, then, 
these three forms, each higher than the other, under 
which an object presents itself to us : first, its ab- 
stract individuality ; second, its manifold finite rela- 
tions ; and, thirdly, its absolute being. These three 
forms depend upon the point of view from which we 
regard the object. They are dependent chiefly upon 
the degree of the development of our own nature. 
The change is more in us than in it. We first 
take in the world by the senses only, then the under- 
standing begins to analyze, to observe, and to com- 
pare ; and, finally, the higher reason sees the higher 
reality underlying all, and utters the verdict of true, 
or good, or beautiful. We have, then, a division based 
upon our own mental standpoint and development, 
which will be more serviceable than the first. The 
propositions answering to these three forms, in which 
objects are presented to the mind, may be entitled 
Propositions of the senses, or, more generally, of per- 
ception, Propositions of the understanding, Propo- 
sitions of the reason. By the perception is here 
meant the faculty of the simple and direct cognizance 
of the outward world through the senses; by the 
understanding, the faculty which discerns differences, 
which discriminates, divides, and classifies, a classifi- 
cation being a method of division ; and by the reason 
is meant the faculty which discerns the inner unity, 



110 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the fundamental and absolute relations of all. The 
lack of this distinction, and the neglect of the 
relations between these three forms of proposition, 
are the cause of much of the mistiness of our thought, 
Together they form the foundation of all our knowl- 
edge, the three tiers of the bridge by which we at- 
tempt to span the gulf that separates us from the 
absolute reality. 

a. — PROPOSITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 

These propositions are based, first, upon the testi- 
mony of each of the five senses taken separately ; 
secondly, upon the combined result of these ; and, 
thirdly, there is a large class of intermediate propo- 
sitions which at first sprung from the understand- 
ing, but are afterwards confounded with the results 
of the senses. Such are the propositions which 
relate to the wholeness, to the individuality, to the 
distance, direction, size, etc., of bodies. These 
we commonly take as if on the evidence of our senses, 
while yet they are the result of long, though per- 
haps unconscious observation. The elementary 
books abound in examples of the utter impossibility 
there is, that one who has just gained the sense of 
sight can determine anything in regard to the rela- 
tions existing in the world about him. Some such 
persons, when they become bewildered by the novelty 
of what they see about them, are forced to shut their 
eyes in order to find their way in any familiar localhYv. 
The relations of the senses, the circumstances in 
which, and the laws according to which, the senses 



i, 



PROPOSITIONS OF PERCEPTION. Ill 

act, though of great interest in themselves, would be 
better studied in a work on physiology or metaphys- 
ics, than in one on logic. For us here is only to 
be considered the foundation that they afford for 
reliable propositions. 

Of the five senses, two place us in relation with 
bodies in a state of dissolution or absorption. These 
are the senses of taste and smell. One other, that of 
hearing, brings us into relation with bodies that are 
in transient motion. We have, then, only two senses 
that bring us in connection with bodies in their integ- 
rity, and in their normal state. These are the senses 
of sight and feeling. All of our direct knowledge of 
the outward world is based upon these. 

The revelations of sight are twofold : first, in 
regard to the color; and, secondly, in regard to the 
size and form of an object. The first we may call 
subjective, as the color, however influenced and 
caused by the body, is a sensation of our own. The 
second we may call objective, because size and shape 
belong to the object. Here is the great difference 
between sight and hearing, as putting us into a rela- 
tion with the outer world. Hearing gives us the 
sensation of sound, sight that of color ; but besides 
this sensation, color gives us knowledge of the form 
and the relative size of bodies. Thus the proposition, 
The rose is red, is true so far as the sight is con- 
cerned ; while the proposition, that The face of the 
clock is circular, is objectively true. 

It is commonly said that sight reveals only color 
directly. But sight does reveal directly the outline 
of forms. Even if we were without the sense of 






112 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

feeling, all plane forms could be distinguished by the 
sight, and classified, just as colors are distinguishe 
and classified. How distinct a consciousness of for 
we should have without the aid of feeling, it is impossi 
ble for us to say. We could not help noticing th 
difference between a square and a round patch of red 
Thus we should distinguish between form and color, 
however vaguely. The sense of feeling gives reality 
to the perception of plane forms, and adds to this that 
of projected forms, and also of distance. By eight 
alone the changes produced by motion would also be 
discerned ; but that any idea of motion would be 
attached to these changes is not probable. It would 
seem simply an appearance and disappearance of 
colors, like the play of iridescence on the neck of a 
dove. By the sense of feeling, we enter first the 
realm of full objectivity. 

The way in Avhich feeling, with the aid of the other 
senses, leads to the full knowledge of the outer world 
and its relations, has been of late discussed very ably 
by Bain and Herbert Spencer, and to their works and 
others similar, the reader interested in the study of 
psychology is referred. We have here to do, not 
with the delicate methods, but with the solid and re 
liable results of consciousness. I will, therefore, 
refer to views opposed to those stated above, only in 
regard to a single point. It was acutely argued by 
Brown, that even the forms of bodies exist to us onl 
in sensation. We judge of the shape, of the size, of 
the hardness of a body, by the degree and kind of 
resistance which it offers to us. In this view he has 
been supported by Mill and other writers of authori- 



PROPOSITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 113 

ty. But this is. only a partial statement. The form 
of a body is not recognized by our senses alone, but 
also by other bodies. Or, if one insists that we have 
a right to speak of things only as phenomena, we 
must recognize two classes of these. The first are 
in relation with one of our senses only. The second 
are in relation with more than one of our senses, and 
also with one another. The color of an object does 
not affect other insensible bodies, or, in other words, 
other phenomena pay no regard to it ; while the form 
of an object is respected by other phenomena. Thus 
flowing water takes a sweep which answers precisely 
to the shape of the rock that opposes it. A ball re- 
bounds from the wall that meets it. Besides this, 
form is recognized not only by one, but by two senses. 
These considerations force us to ascribe more perfect 
objectivity to form than to color. This is, perhaps, 
one reason why, notwithstanding the more varied 
power of painting, the feeling is so common that 
sculpture is the nobler art. The proposition of the 
perception, beginning with the direct effect of objects 
upon our senses, thus brings us at last to the relations 
of objects with one another, by which they become 
the material upon which the understanding works. 
Before, however, passing to the propositions of the 
understanding, we must tarry for a moment in the 
border land which unites, while it separates, the two. 
There are many propositions, which, judging from 
our consciousness of them, we should say depended 
upon the senses, while yet we know that the senses 
alone would not have sus^ested them. These have 

CO 

been already referred to in the opening of this chap- 

8 r- 



114 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ter, but were left with the simplest notice. Here, 
first, can we give a full examination to them. 

A man says that he sees a tree. The philosopher 
knows that he does not. He sees a certain form and 
color, which observation and experience, both un- 
conscious, have taught him represent a tree. This 
is a difference between the senses and the ab- 
stract reasoning which will never be completely 
settled. Consciousness is on the side of the senses, 
abstract thought is on the side of the understanding. 
Custom and all the precedents of society are also 
on the side of the senses. A witness testifies to an 
act on the evidence of his own sight. If he gives 
his own inference about it he is checked. The court 
wishes to know, not what he inferred, but what he 
saw. It would hardly be taken into the account that 
his whole story is an inference ; that what he says he 
saw he did not see, but only inferred from what he 
saw. What he saw was forms, colors, motions. 
What he inferred was a man doing violence to another 
man. This unconsciousness runs through life. The 
fact is, that what we see depends upon the standpoint 
which we have reached. A man's whole experience, 
culture, and development look through his eyes, and 
listen with his ears. Thus do the senses seem to 
gain new power at every step, and the progress is one 
which seems almost infinite. The chemist, the geolo- 
gist, who sees the vastest laws of nature embodied in 
the smallest object or fact, would find it almost as 
difficult to separate the result of thought from the 
momentary act of the senses, as the poorest rustic 
would, who is sure that he sees men and trees. We 



PROPOSITIONS OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 115 

need not be careful in our divisions to settle these 
rival claims, to determine whether what perception has 
thus gained shall be considered as belonging to it or 
not, whether the understanding shall still retain any 
right over what seems thus to have passed out of its 
realm. It is enough for us that we have here the 
common border-line; and that, while discussing the 
propositions of the senses, we find ourselves already 
busying ourselves with those of the understanding. 

b. PROPOSITIONS OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

CLASS FIRST. — PROPOSITIONS OF GENERALIZATION. 

The proposition, That horse is white, even the 
propositions, That is a horse, That is a tree, may be 
reckoned as propositions of perception, though this is 
done under some protest from the understanding. 
When we come consciously to generalize our obser- 
vations, then the presence of the understanding be- 
comes more easily and universally recognized. This 
distinctness is increased according to the vastness and 
difficulty of the generalization. If I say, All gold 
that I have seen is heavier than water, All the men 
of whom I have read in history were mortal, there is 
evidence of a comparison, more or less accurate, which 
all recognize as the work of the understanding. Yet 
the propositions rest for their truth on the evidence 
of their senses as much as the simple proposition, This 
bit of gold is heavier than water. ISTo new element 
has been introduced except that of discrimination. 
When, however, I rise from such a generalization as 



116 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

this to an absolute generalization, when I say not 
only, All the gold that I have seen, but, All gold is 
heavier than water ; not only, All the men of whom 
I have read, but, All men are mortal, there is intro- 
duced a new element, which deserves our careful 
consideration. Before, the understanding worked 
with the senses. Now, it separates itself from them, 
and makes affirmations which have nothing to do with 
the senses. They are either out of the sphere of the 
senses, or they oppose the senses in their own sphere. 
This broad generalization, or rather this affirmation 
which goes beyond all generalization, is the aim of 
the understanding in all its lesser generalizations. It 
begins as an ally of the senses, in order that it may 
be able to set them at defiance. The senses affirm, 
as they always will, that the sun rises and sets. The 
understanding, which seemed to be the child of the 
senses, which suffered itself to depend upon them and 
to be led by them, returns and contradicts their most 
direct evidence. It bases itself on general laws, 
which are neither seen nor heard ; and, more than 
this, pressing into the invisible future, and relying 
upon some unknown infinity, it affirms that these gen- 
eral laws shall endure forever, shall endure even if 
the material objects from which it seemed to have 
learned them should pass away. AVe have now to 
ask whether the understanding has power within it- 
self to make such an affirmation as this. We are not 
now, it will be noticed, discussing the method of in- 
ductive reasoning, its rules and its safeguards; the 
question is only, what is the basis of all induction, 
upon what ground rest such propositions as, All men 



THE BASIS OP GENERALIZATION. 117 

are mortal, All matter possesses, always has possessed 
and will possess the property of attraction. They 
cannot be the result of observation, for they go be- 
yond all observation. No analysis, not the clearest vis- 
ion, has penetrated or can penetrate the time to come. 
No telescope can sweep the mysterious realm of the fu- 
ture. No observer has come to us to tell of its hidden 
wonders. Yet we speak as confidently of it as we 
do of what we have seen. It cannot be the result of 
abstraction merely, because it includes what abstrac- 
tion can never reach. Abstraction separates from 
objects, in some respects unlike, some quality in 
which they are alike. But such propositions as those 
of which we speak, affirm these qualities to exist in 
regard to objects which we have never seen. 

How do we cross this gulf which separates the seen 
from the unseen? At this point, different systems 
divide more than at any other. Hume, more logical 
in his scepticism than many others in their belief, 
affirmed the crossing to be impossible. We do not 
and we cannot reason, he tells us, from the known to 
the unknown. What appears such reasoning is, ac- 
cording to Hume, a mere habit of the mind. Belief 
is, according to Hume, mere vividness of conception 
resulting from association. We have been so often 
burnt, that we connect the feeling of heat with fire. 
We do not know that fire will burn us because it has 
burnt us, but the presence of fire suggests so strongly 
the thought of heat, that we call it knowledge. Thus 
does Hume, willing to accept nothing which is not 
part of his own conscious experience, lose that most 
important element of all experience, knowledge. 



118 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

Thus does positivism tend to become unreal and nep > 
ative. This criticism, however, furnishes no answer 
to the assertion that induction depends merely on as- 
sociation. We cau decide the question with certainty 
only by observing whether association is sufficient, in 
every case, for the result produced. A man tells me, 
for instance, that a certain plant is poisonous. I go 
into a place where both this plant and a fire are per- 
ceived by me. I believe that this plant, from which 
I have never suffered, is poisonous, as strongly as I 
believe that the fire, from which I have suffered, will 
burn. With the plant I have no association of feel- 
ing, but yet I fear it. It ma}^ be said that, in this 
case, the association is with the spoken word ; that I 
am used to expecting what is said to be followed by 
the result spoken of under the circumstances named. 
But I am not so used. I do uot believe half I hear. 
All that can be said is, that, by induction, I deter- 
mine what association to trust in, and what not. 
Thus association cannot be the foundation of induc- 
tion. It may momentarily take the place of induc- 
tion. When we do not think carefully, something 
that is suggested by association may be taken for 
something proved by induction. When we think 
carefully, we discriminate between the two, and often 
find the two in conscious strife. A man has met with 
an accident in driving, which makes him dread to get 
into a carriage. He may know, in any given case, 
that there is no danger, yet he cannot free himself 
from his dread. Now he may drive, in spite of the 
association ; or he may not drive, in spite of his knowl- 
edge ; but the strife shows that association is not 



THE BASIS OF GENERALIZATION. 119 

induction, and that induction is not mere associa- 
tion. 

A more general statement of the same truth would 
be this : A strong impression on the mind is not the 
same thing as belief founded on induction. Such an 
impression may often be equivalent to such a belief. 
This may be seen in the training of a witness, which 
is said to be sometimes resorted to in preparation for 
a trial. Mr. A. meets the party to be manipulated, 
and inquires, carelessly, if he remembers a conversa- 
tion which he (Mr. A.) had with Mr. B. in regard to 
a certain subject, when one said this and the other 
that, they standing in such a place, and the person 
inquired of at such another. The conversation may 
be further connected with some event that actually 
transpired. The man remembers nothing about it. 
A few months afterwards the same event is brouo'ht 
before his mind in the same way. This time he has 
a confused remembrance of the fact in regard to which 
inquiry is made. After a few more months, inquiry 
is made of him the third time. This time he remem- 
bers all about it, and, when he is summoned into 
court, gives fluent and circumstantial evidence. Now, 
such a case as this might, with some persons, readily 
occur. The detail of circumstances is surreptitiously 
introduced into an unsuspicious mind; their lines are 
artfully deepened, until, at last, the mind adopts it 
as the result of its own perception. The reason of 
this is, that whatever is thus impressed upon the 
mind, with no memory of the manner of its introduc- 
tion, is apt to be the result of perception, and is so 
accepted without inquiry. The mind may be cle- 



120 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ceived, just as the senses are deceived, but these 
exceptional cases do not prove what is the ordinary 
and natural method. The fact that whenever the 
method of the introduction of such an impression into 
the mind is recalled, this impression is strictly and 
promptly distinguished from the memory of an exter- 
nal fact, shows that the two rest upon entirely dis- 
tinct bases, and are themselves entirely distinct. Now, 
the mere conception, before its origin is recalled, is no 
"more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, or steady" (to use 
the adjectives by which Hume would describe belief) 
than afterwards ; yet in the one case it is belief, and 
in the other it is not. Belief, then, is something 
different from the vivid and steady conception of an 
object. Hume very properly affirms at the outset, 
that, Cf in philosophy, we can go no further than assert 
that belief is something felt by the mind, which dis- 
tinguishes the ideas of the judgment from the fictions 
of the imagination." It is a pity that he undertook 
to take that impossible step by confusing this ulti- 
mate fact of belief with vividness in the conception 
of an object ; though, had he not done this, the world 
would have lost his very interesting speculations, and 
all the rich discussion that has sprung from them. 

Mr. Mill adopts still another position, startling in 
its boldness, and still more startling by its lack of 
foundation. He affirms, in effect, that faith in induc- 
tion is the result of induction. Stated more fully and 
plausibly, the position is this : We arrive by induc- 
tion at the grand proposition of the unity and invari- 
ableness of the universe. This is the great result of 
induction. It is the test and the proof of all minor 



THE BASIS OF GENERALIZATION. 121 

inductions. If I believe that the sun will rise to- 
morrow, because it has always risen within the mem- 
oiy of man, I appeal, in support of this belief, to the 
uniformity of the laws of nature. This last great 
proposition, the test of all and the proof of all, is left 
without proof or test, save the simple induction upon 
which it depends. To see the fallacy of this, we need 
only reduce this ampl ideation to the simple proposi- 
tion stated above, that our belief in induction depends 
upon induction. We have only to ask, upon what 
does our faith in this induction depend? The ques- 
tion is not to what broader induction may these minor 
ones be related, but why do we have confidence in 
induction itself? In other words, supposing that all 
the past in its fulness were known to us, all space fa- 
miliar to us, and all time up to the present moment, 
aud we knew that in every case, up to this moment, 
the laws of nature have been unvaried, what right 
would we have to say that they would be so in the 
next moment? This would be induction in its most 
perfect form, but why have faith in induction at all?* 
If we look back on the ground that we have passed 
over, we shall see that the three positions, which we 
have successively occupied, are separated each from 
the other by a gulf which we can hardly bridge. We 
have, first, the impressions of the senses; we have, 

* Mr. Mill, in his valuable critique on the Philosophy of Sir William 
Hamilton, appears to defend, in a note, this position in regard to induction, 
by saying in effect that many seem to forget the mutual support which propo- 
sitions derive from each other. This should be forgotten by no sound mind. 
But this does not show that propositions may derive their only foundation 
from this mutual support. No relation of action and reaction would enable 
a man to sit in a basket and lift himself up by the handles. 



122 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

secondly, the understanding busying itself with these 
impressions, not doubting that they represent real 
objects; and we have, in the third place, the thought 
going beyond the senses themselves, and stretching 
its results into that which is unseen. 

The attempt to explain and justify these leaps, by 
the theory of certain innate truths, is at best an awk- 
ward one. It is not primarily by these innate truths 
that the transition is made. In other words, the 
consciousness of the truths, called innate, is developed 
out of the processes of mind which are said to rest on 
them, instead of being the conscious starting-point 
of these processes. I do not have faith in the sta- 
bility and unity of the universe because I believe the 
proposition that the universe is a perfect and system- 
atic whole. On the contrary, I deduce this proposi- 
tion from the faith with which I expect in every case 
this stability. Still further, I do not believe from 
induction in this stability ; for my faith in induction 
is itself based upon this other faith. 

If, giving up all theory, and omitting nothing 
from our data because we do not understand it, we 
take the facts of our consciousness just as they are, 
we shall be able to simplify this whole thing. The 
truth of the matter appears to be that we come into 
the world with certain instincts of activity, bodily 
and mental, and a faith by which we follow these 
instincts, confident that they will not deceive or mis- 
lead us. As, however, the word faith may seem to 
imply too much a conscious foundation, we will use 
the term, good faith. Man comes into the world in 
good faith. By this is meant that he comes without 



i 



THE BASIS OF GENERALIZATION. 123 

any feeling that he is to be imposed upon or trifled 
with. He takes it for granted, even without being 
conscious of it, that life is a real and earnest thing. 
In other words, he begins to live in good earnest. 
The infant has an instinct to suck. It knows nothing 
of the provision nature has made' for its support. It 
simply sucks, in good faith, anything that comes 
within the reach and compass of its mouth. Now, 
this instinct in the child involves, in its truth, a very 
complicated system of facts and relations, the full 
knowledge of which is only reached by prolonged, 
and even professional, study. The child has further 
impressions and sensations. It takes it for granted 
that they mean something and correspond with some- 
thing. As the child grows older, he watches the 
course of events, and so soon as he detects any 
similarity or appearance of method, he takes it for 
granted that that is the way that things are done 
here. This seriousness, earnestness, honesty, or 
good faith, whatever term we may apply to it, in 
which even the infant, in which even the brute, be- 
gins life, is the basis of the conscious faith in induc- 
tion. It is the parent of the grand truth of the 
reason, that the world is a systematic whole, nay, 
that the universe is such a whole. The individual, 
meaning honestly and seriously himself, believes the 
world to be honest and serious. And, if this be so, 
it must have some meaning, some bond, some unity. 
In one word, the individual believes in the truth of 
things, and this implies, when developed to its full 
meaning, that they are not isolated shadows, but that 
they stand in a certain connection with one another. 



124 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

We thus come to the propositions of the reason ; but 
before entering upon these directly, we must con- 
sider another use that the understanding makes of 
the faith of the reason. Not only relying upon this 
does it reach new truth by induction, going forward 
in its undoubting march, it also arranges and classi- 
fies what it has already discovered. It makes its 
systems, not doubting that there is a great system 
which answers more or less accurately to them. 



SECOND CLASS OF PROPOSITIONS OF THE UNDERSTANDING, 
NAMELY, THOSE RELATING TO DIVISION, CLASSIFICATION. 
AND NOMENCLATURE. 

Classification may be made for two purposes. 
The first is, that of enabling us to find and recog- 
nize individual objects. The second, to form a sys- 
tem which shall answer to that of nature. In other 
words, the first is a help to the acquisition of knowl- 
edge ; the last is a record of the results of knowledge. 
The formation of the catalogue of a library may illus- 
trate the peculiar advantage and disadvantage of each 
method, and the incompatibility which sometimes 
exists between the two. A catalogue may be either 
an alphabetical list of the titles of the books 
included, or it may be what is called a "catalogue 
raisomiee." In this last case a system is made em- 
bracing all departments of thought, and the titles of 
the books are arranged under the heads of this sys- 
tem. The first method enables one to find, directly, 
any book of which he knows the title, but exhibits 
nothing of the fulness of the library in any one 



CLASSIFICATION. 125 

department, and is no guide to one wishing to read 
on a particular subject. The second method satisfies 
this last need, but it involves difficulty in finding 
individual books. One must understand, in all its 
details, the system adopted, of he will not be able to 
take the first step. Some books may belong as well 
under one heading as another, and in the case of 
complete sets of the works of a single author, either 
violence must be done to the method by bringing 
them together, or violence must be done to the sets 
by separating them. In the case of a library the 
difficulty is solved only by a twofold catalogue ; but 
whether these are united, either serving, as it may, 
for the index to the other, or whether they are 
separate, the result is the same. It is, practically, 
two catalogues, as the two methods admit in this 
case of no compromise. 

In the arrangement or classification of a science, 
the difficulty does not occur in precisely this manner, 
but the difficulty exists no less. It may be generally 
stated under this form. An arrangement on the 
fundamental principles of a science cannot, in gen- 
eral, be easily understood by a beginner in the sci- 
ence, and, further, such a classification cannot be 
made until these fundamental principles have been 
reached. The first classification, then, of every sci 
ence is, and must be, popular. As the science 
advances, a new and more properly scientific classi- 
fication may be made. Whether this ever becomes 
popular in its turn depends upon the obviousness 
of the principles of the science. We have a fine 
example of these two stages in the history of the 



126 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

science of botany. The classification of Linnaeus 
was sufficient so far as the cataloguing of plants, and 
the recognition of them, are concerned. But it was 
found not to fall in with the order and arrangement 
of nature. The natural arrangement is, in some 
respects, less convenient, but it exhibits its material 
in the order of nature. The importance of this last 
object of classification may be illustrated by the joy 
with which Hugh Miller found, or thought he found, 
that the classification of geology falls in with the 
order of creation. 

All scientific classification, then, grows out of the 
science itself. That is, it is the result of observation. 
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a complete 
and absolutely a priori division. What is called such 
is a division which, from the laws of the mind, or 
from some known law of things, is seen to be final ; 
but this law of the mind, or law of things, has been 
already learned by observation. Take, for instance, 
the classification of nouns already given under the 
heading Terms. Nouns may be the names of indi- 
viduals or of classes, of materials, of qualities, of mo- 
tions, or states. We know that we cannot conceive 
of objects except under these heads. The division is 
a priori, so far as the mass of nouns is concerned, but 
not so far as these possible conditions are concerned. 

So far as any division is purely a priori, it is sim- 
ply negative and thus partial. We see some objects 
possessing a certain quality, and we make a division 
distinguishing those that have this quality from those 
that do not. We seem to ourselves to say something 
when we divide objects into organic and inorganic. 



CLASSIFICATION. 127 

This is, however, no proper division. It simply af- 
firms that some objects are organized. Of the rest it 
affirms and knows nothing. We might as well say, 
Stones and other things, and call it a classification. 
When we take a step further, and divide objects into 
animal, vegetable, and mineral, we seem to have a 
more perfect classification. All that we have gained, 
however, is a subdivision of the one class already 
known, while the same formless and unknown mass 
of objects, before called inorganic, is now called min- 
eral, — a term which has a positive meaning, it is true, 
but a meaning which has no reference to a great por- 
tion of the objects comprehended by it. Not until 
the science of mineralogy has become developed so 
that we know what are the common principles which 
unite this vast mass of things, as the principle of or- 
ganization, either vegetable or animal, unites the first 
class, does it become really the basis of a scientific 
division. When we can say that mineralogy includes 
all objects which are subject to mechanical and chemi- 
cal laws, and to these alone, and are capable of crys- 
tallization, we have what is the basis of a real and 
positive class. The title is popular, but the class is 
scientific. Either the laws of chemistry, or those of 
crystallization, or both, may furnish the positive char- 
acteristics of it. The result of all is, that a division 
is a priori only so far as it is in part negative. 

We have then a classification which is based upon 
observation. We have examined, it is supposed, all 
objects sufficiently to find certain marks by which one 
group may be distinguished from another. Each 
group is not merely negative, but possesses certain 



128 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

positive peculiarities of its own. This is the extent 
of most attempts at classification. It does not, how- 
ever, satisfy the mental desire for completeness. We 
have thus far certain points, each distinct from the 
other, and having no relation to it. Each would be 
just the same if the other did not exist. What we 
now need is, a classification which shall exhibit the 
classes in their relation to one another, so that the 
whole shall not be merely exhaustive, but systematic 
and organic. 

Of this form of classification that adopted by Comte 
for the arrangement of all our knowledge, and called 
by him the Hierarchy of sciences, is a very beautiful 
example. The basis of this is the greater or less 
complexity of the sciences. Mathematics is the most 
abstract of sciences, and forms the basis of the struc- 
ture. Sociology, or the science of society, forms the 
culmination of it. Between these are ranged me- 
chanics, astronomy, chemistry, etc. Each is more 
complex than the other, and as it gains in complexity 
it loses in accuracy and perfection. This is a very 
beautiful classification," for each class stands in its 
place as regards all the others, and the same test is 
applied to all. It is not merely a series, it is a hie- 
rarchy. It is, perhaps, small disparagement to say 
that this system is not perfect, in a sphere where per- 
fection seems as yet unattainable. The reason de- 
mands not merely this relation of each to the whole, 
it demands also that this relation should be a funda- 
mental one. It should be based upon what is really 
the vital point in each. If the assumption with which 
this system starts were true, that is, if we knew that 



CLASSIFICATION. 129 

all other sciences could be reduced to mathematical 
laws, had we sufficent mental skill to do this, then 
the science of mathematics would be indeed the basis 
of all and the vital bond of all. The system would 
then be perfect. But this assumption is one that 
would be extravagant even in a work based profess- 
edly upon theory. It becomes doubly extravagant in 
a work which claims to be based wholly upon positive 
science. In the first part of this work we saw, in- 
deed, that there is a point where quantity and quality 
become lost in one another, but yet neither can be 
confounded with the other. They are like the oppo- 
site arcs of a circle, which, prolonged, become lost in 
one another, but which yet cannot be confounded. 
So far as really positive science has yet gone, it is 
only the wildest theory to affirm that all difference in 
quality rests upon difference in quantity. Even if 
this w T ere so, and proved to be, yet when this quali- 
tative difference has once been produced, it brings 
with it its own system of laws, which cannot be con- 
founded with mathematical laws. Even if we take a 
step further and admit, what we cannot deny to be 
possible, that science shall discover more and more 
the mathematical laws underlying all others, the hie- 
rarchy, though very beautiful, would still be imper- 
fect. The principle adopted, instead of filling a more 
and more important place as we went on, would fill a 
less and less important one. Take, for instance, the 
science of society. It may be that it is the greater or 
less amount of vitality, or whatever else we may call 
it, which forms difference in character, yet it is the 
difference in character which must be recognized in 



130 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

society. Such illustrations might be pursued furthe; 
but it seems sufficiently obvious that, after the dine" 
enccs in quality have been established, they form a 
basis of new laws. This must remain so, even in 
chemistry, where the mathematical laws have made 
such gains within a few years. Each substance has 
its own numerical equivalent, but the connection 
between this and the substance itself, with its varied 
qualities on the one side, and its compounds on the 
other, can never be unveiled. There will always 
remain these two elements. As we advance to the 
more complicated sciences, we have not only more 
complicated mathematical and mechanical relations, 
but also new qualitative elements which must always 
remain distinct. 

Further, not only do the mathematical laws become 
connected with other principles, as we proceed, but 
they occupy more and more a secondary position. In- 
stead of becoming more obvious and more important as 
we ascend, they become less obvious and less impor- 
tant. They do not, therefore, even if we could assume 
their presence as fundamental everywhere, become the 
best basis of division or classification. This should 
become more important and clearer as we advance, 
provided we have caught the. true principle of nature. 
It is the lower that is to be explained from the higher, 
not the higher from the lower. Nature is, at least in 
form, a progression and an ascent. Class and system 
rise above class and system. The laws of life are 
higher than the laws of chemistry. The laws of 
chemistry, relating, as they do, to the nature of bod- 
ies, are higher than the laws of mechanics. This is 



CLASSIFICATION. 131 

recognized by the very term, Hierarchy of sciences. 
But if mechanics has superiority to life, it is an in- 
verted hierarchy. No principle of division or gener- 
alization can be complete or final which does not 
recognize this principle. The principle of division 
should, then, rather be a law than a quality or rela- 
tion. It should be what might be called, formally 
at least, a principle of development. It should re- 
gard the lower from the stand-point of the higher, 
and not seek to drag the higher clown to the level of 
the lower. This may be illustrated by some of the 
great generalizations of modern science, especially 
the science of morphology. The reduction of such 
different forms to a common type, the lower being 
viewed in the light of the higher, furnishes a beautiful 
example, or illustration, of truly scientific generaliza- 
tion. In the plant we have, in the progress of 
growth, the cotyledons of the seeds, the leaves, the 
branches, the flowers, and the fruit. All are modifi- 
cations of the same structure, all are formed on the 
same type. Here, we have the image of the world, 
as the philosopher conceives it ; all its manifold va- 
rieties being higher and higher manifestations of the 
same principle. The science of morphology goes 
further. It finds the same principle in the animal 
world that it found in the vegetable ; the branching 
trunk is the prototype of the spinal column, while out 
of the spinal column spring varied members, all 
transformations of the same typical form ; the skull 
itself being a transformed vertebra. Thus we have 
running through so large a section of the world a 
single principle ; we have the higher springing out 






132 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of the lower. We make divisions, but they vanish 
under our hands. The varied parts and elements do 
not stand over against one another in stiff and stub- 
born opposition, but meet and flow into one another. 
We speak of leaves and flowers. They seem distinct 
enough ; yet, as we look, we see the leaf structure 
becoming the flower, and the flower, in some play of. 
nature, falling back into the leaf form. What we call 
divisions and elements, we find to be only moments; 
that is, the partial and complemental stages of an 
eternal progress. We cannot say that the flower or 
the fruit is only a variation of the leaf structure, un- 
derstanding that it is only a chance play of forms. The 
flower and the fruit are the end of the leaf, in so far 
as it is the nature of the plant not to rest content with 
leaves, but to press on to its flowering and its fruit. 
More nearly just, though not strictly so, it would be 
to sa}^, that the leaf is an arrested development. This 
is just, if we mean by the expression that it is a rest- 
ing in one stage of an appointed development, under- 
standing, also, that this resting is a part of the pre- 
scribed course. So it would be false to speak of man 
as a transformed monkey, or serpent, while in the 
same sense as the expression was used before, and 
without involving any theory of the method of crea- 
tion, we can speak of these lower animals as exam- 
ples of an arrested development ; that is, only one stage 
in this great system, which is not complete, until it 
has reached the highest point of development in the 
highest of its elements. It is, therefore, evident, that 
no complete arrangement can be made, until the sys- 
tem is wholly understood and completed. Still we 



CLASSIFICATION. 133 

can approximate this perfection. It may be possible 
to discover the law which controls this process before 
its whole sweep has been observed. This has already 
been found to be from unity to complexity, and from 
complexity to a higher and concrete unity. The 
terms applied by Mr. Herbert Spencer are as appro- 
priate as any. The twofold law of differentiation 
and integration is the law of progress. Mr. Spencer 
has accumulated a vast collection of illustrations of this 
twofold law. This is, however, no different from 
what had been before announced as the law of pro- 
gression through antagonisms. The growth of the 
plant from the simplicity of the seed, through the 
antagonisms of the upward-pressing leaves and down- 
ward-pressing roots, and of constantly dividing 
branches and roots, to the concrete unity of the whole 
plant, furnishes the universal type. We thus return 
to the logical basis. First, we have the abstract uni- 
versal, next the antagonistic particular, and, finally, 
the concrete individual. 

Physical science will approach slowly this perfec- 
tion. Already the science of embryology is begin- 
ning to unite, by a certain principle of progress, the 
fixed orders of animal life. Already speculation is 
beginning to assail the fixed barriers of science. But 
it will be long before theory and the accuracy of 
science shall have settled these matters between them- 
selves. Meanwhile the purely speculative sciences 
should reach after a more accurate and philosophic 
method of division. Mental phenomena succeed one 
another, and pass into one another, by fixed laws, 
and it is time that the mind should be no longer re- 




134 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



garded, even in theory, as a mass of distinct entities. 
Hegel in Germany, and Spencer in England, ap- 
proaching these matters from entirely different stand- 
points, have done much to bring about the desired 
result. The mind through all its phases is one. 
These phases are only fluctuating forms. Most of 
all, should logic, the science of sciences, attain to 
perfection of division and method. Yet nowhere else 
does such confusion reign as in the popular logic. 

From what has been said above, it will appear that 
for any perfect classification, however general or 
specific, three things are necessary : first, that the 
principle of classification should be clear ; that is, that 
it should be such as should enable us to distinguish 
certainly and accurately, members of one group from 
those of another ; secondly, that it should be such that 
the divisions resulting from it should fall in with 
those of nature ; that is, that the members of each 
group should be united, not merely by some arbitrary 
external mark, but also by some natural affinity ; and, 
thirdly, that it should be such as to show the relation of 
each group to all others, whether upon the same 
plane, or upon a lower or a higher. It is interesting 
and instructive to see how science has gradually made 
her work correspond to these requirements, until now 
she consciously adopts them as the true ideal of scien- 
tific classification, and the test of its correctness. 
The science of zoology, for instance, we find assuming 
the form and proportions of a systematic whole, by 
showing that the members of the higher orders of any 
given class of animals pass, in the course of their 
development, through stages corresponding to those 



CLASSIFICATION. 135 

occupied by the lower orders of the same class. 
One principle of division separates and unites all 
groups. The primary divisions, or 'types, depend 
upon plan of structure, ff the classes upon the manner 
of its execution, the orders upon the greater or less 
complication of a given mode of execution, the rami- 
lies upon form," genera upon details of structure, 
and species upon minor differences in the details of 
the same structure.* The four general types of ani- 
mal existence are arranged by Prof. Agassiz in per- 
fect conformity with the principles above, and so 
often, referred to in this work, that is, of progression 
by differentiation. The radiates represent the lowest 
type ; above these stand the mollusks and the articu- 
lates on the same plane, one representing concentra- 
tion and contraction, the other representing outward 
expression ; while above these stands the class of 
vertebrates. Thus we have three stages, the lowest 
representing the most abstract form of life, the 
highest the most concrete, while between them stand 
over against each other the two elements of life, the 
internal and the external. As we pass from these 
most general tj^pes, through classes, orders, families, 
genera, and species, we see one principle running 
through all, appearing in its most universal form in 
the first, and becoming more and more specialized in 
those that come after, until all together take concrete 
life in the individual. 

The question of "Nominalism or Realism," which 

*See the work of Prof. Agassiz, entitled " Methods of Study 
in Natural History;", a work as important to the student of 
logic as to the student of natural history. 



136 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

was so long a subject of controversy among meta- 
physicians, or, rather, the subject of controversy 
which separated schools from one another, is thus 
being gradually settled by science in the direction of 
realism. The question was, whether names were 
anything more than words applied to certain resem- 
blances or differences, which we observe in nature, 
the name of a group being merely a name with no 
reality corresponding to it. The facts of embryology 
show that at least the zoological orders represent a 
reality, the members of each being united by an 
inner unity as well as an outer resemblance. If the 
theory of development were true, science would be- 
come wholly realistic, each group representing iden- 
tity of origin ; that is, the continuance and activity of 
a single and special force ; and, leaving this out of 
the account, all the approaches of science to a simple 
and perfect organization corresponding to that of 
nature work in the same direction, since they show 
in each group identity of relation to this common 
organism. Here, as in the matter of causation, it is 
beautiful to see the ease and naturalness with which 
science is gradually settling questions, which so long 
taxed in vain the strength of mere metaphysicians. 

Terminology is a matter in which perfection is 
harder to reach, and less needful, than in division and 
arrangement. Words are only signs ; and however 
accurately or inaccurately formed they soon pass into 
identity with the thing signified. It does not matter 
that the word owe once meant to own. No debtor's 
lot is lightened by that ; and oxygen is as good a 
name, though the substance does much besides form 



PROPOSITIONS OF THE REASON. 137 

acids, and does not form all of them. Still, so far 
as it is possible, a systematic and accurate termi- 
nology is to be preferred. Chemistry, and a part of 
anatomy, approach more nearly to this than any other 
sciences ; and even in these the perfection is in some 
sort mechanical. In other sciences, the division into 
classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties makes 
a sufficiently good framework for nomenclature. In 
mental science we miss, most of all, a scientific 
language. I will not here speak of the confusion pro- 
duced by the use of terms half popular and half 
scientific ; I will simply refer to the fact, that in forrn- 
ins: the divisions of this work no such word as 
genus, species, etc., could be found to preside over 
the separate parts. Literary terms, such as Book, 
Part, Chapter, etc., have no organic meaning or 
relation. An argument has its terms, but for the 
consecutive unfolding of thought there are no terms. 
The figures and letters, by which the divisions in a 
work like this have tobe marked, show how imper- 
fect is still the culture of thought, which has not yet 
invented terms to represent its own various stages. 

C. PROPOSITIONS OF THE REASON. 

FIRST CLASS.— PROPOSITIONS OF TRUTH. 

We have seen that the propositions of the under- 
standing, whether of generalization or of classifica- 
tion in its higher form, presuppose something behind 
them. Generalization cannot of itself pass into 
induction, and classification is based upon the funda- 
mental principle, that individuals and species are' 



138 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT, 

parts of one great system. The fundamental princi- 
ple upon which these rest is that the universe is a 
connected and systematic whole. This is the funda- 
mental proposition of the reason, and it is the foun- 
dation of all the reason inor of the understanding. To 
this, under one form or other, all the propositions 
that have been commonly regarded as expressing 
innate truths may be reduced. This itself, as has 
been already intimated, does not pre-exist full-formed 
in the mind. There is at first only the instinct of 
generalization and of trust in the truth and reality 
of things, which, as it finds itself not opposed, but 
favored by the outward world, reaches to fuller and 
fuller consciousness of itself. In this development 
it outruns at every step the results of the senses and 
of the understanding, until at last it reaches the per- 
fect form which Ave have stated. Now that this is 
reached, we can see that it was involved in that crude 
and unformed faith of which I have spoken. Faith 
in our instinct of general izatian is faith in the truth 
of things, in their reality, and in their mutual con- 
nection. Ever the simplest faith in outward reality 
involves the same truth. When we say that a thing 
is not real or true, we mean that it has no connection 
with what is about it, with what has gone before it, 
or with what comes after it. What we mean by the 
being of anything is this iuterpenetration of rela- 
tions, which makes it a force and an object in the 
world. This connection, as has been intimated, is 
threefold. It looks first backward, and secondly 
forward, making of the object effect and cause, 
resulting at last in that conception which has been 



PROPOSITIONS OF THE REASON". 139 

well named Persistence of Force. It looks also, 
thirdly, towards all the surroundings of the object, 
culminating in the conception of the organic unity 
of all things. This last may be represented as giving 
us a simple circle, which the former, namely, the 
persistence of force, enlarges into a solid sphere. 
Since without this connection we could have no faith 
in the reality, truth, and stability of anything, this 
connection being what we mean by reality, truth, and 
stability, it follows that the grandest conception of 
the universe, as a complete and systematic whole, is 
involved in the simple good faith in which man 
begins his life. We may consider this trust in the 
reality of the outward world as an instinct, answer- 
ing to the instinct by which the plant is fitted for its 
life, or by which one part of the plant answers to 
another. Man is fitted by it to be a part of this 
great organism in which he finds himself. To return 
to the illustration already used, as the infant lays 
hold of whatever oifers itself, and puts it in his 
mouth, in the endeavor to suck nourishment from it, 
until it finds, at last, its instincts satisfied with its 
mothers breast, so the mind, by means of the instinct 
of generalization and induction, lays hold of the 
outer world in an unquestioning faith, seeking to 
draw truth from it. It mistakes often, but does not 
wholly fail of satisfaction until at last it reaches the 
full comprehension of what this instinct means, and 
what is the truth for which it thirsts. Thus it is, 
that from poor and meagre data, it leaps to the con- 
ception and belief that the world is an organic, sys- 
tematic whole. 



140 THE SCIENCE OE THOUGHT. 

By this instinct of generalization and induction 
that rests upon the good faith with which we begin 
life, and culminates in the conception of the organic 
unity of the world, we may receive some help 
towards understanding certain relations which are 
sometimes puzzling to the mind. Prominent among 
these is the relation of cause and effect. I have 
already given the scientific definition of causation, 
and in the same place remarked the unsatisfactory 
nature of the metaphysical definitions already given. 
Because there was no outward method of reaching 
the conception of cause and effect, Hume denied that 
we had such a conception, just as he denied, though 
as we have seen not without some self-contradiction, 
the fact of belief, as distinguished from mere asso- 
ciation. Hume affirmed that all that can be meant 
by causation is invariable sequence. When one 
phenomenon invariably follows another, we speak of 
the first as a cause of the second. It has been well 
observed, in reply, that there is no sequence more 
invariable than that of day and night ; yet day is 
not the cause of night, nor night the cause of day. 
Causation must, then, be something different from 
invariable sequence. Mr. Mill attempts to make the 
definition more perfect, by adding the word uncon- 
ditional. Causation, he affirms, means invariable and 
unconditional sequence. The sequence of day and 
night is not unconditional. If the sun should not 
rise, night would not be followed by day; but the 
rising of the sun would be followed by day under all 
conceivable circumstances. The relation of day to 
the rising sun is, then, one of unconditional sequence. 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO TRUTH. 141 

This is all true, but what does Mr. Mill mean by 
unconditional? How does an unconditional sequence 
differ from an invariable one, except in the matter 
of causation? Why do we say that the rising of the 
sun is the unconditional antecedent of daylight, ex- 
cept because we know that the sun is the cause of 
daylight? When we then say, with Hume, that caus- 
ation is invariable sequence, we make a definition 
that includes too much. And when we say, with Mr. 
Mill, that causation is invariable and unconditional 
sequence, we involve the very conception we would 
avoid. 

The relation of cause and effect is one aspect of the 
relation of wholeness, which is the necessary object 
and condition of belief. Thus it will be seen that 
what we mean by the phrase cause and effect is the 
same relation in a consecutive form, that the relation 
of parts to their whole is in a statical relation. This 
relation of parts to their whole has its true signifi- 
cance in the fact that each of the parts has its true 
being only in the whole. 

The relation of identity is another relation that it 
is difficult to conceive. Modern science has been con- 
tinually substituting the word similar, for the same. 
Instead of speaking of two bodies as occupying the 
same relation to another, it speaks of them as occu- 
pying a similar relation. The nature of one man is 
not the same as that of another, only similar to it. 
Human nature is simply an expression for certain 
similar qualities found in different objects. Although 
the mind has hardly seen an escape from such state- 
ments, it has not been satisfied by them. They have 



142 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

seemed to leave a gulf too broad, shutting off not 
only one object from another, but one atom from 
another. It has felt that such statements contravened 
the fundamental conception of truth. This sameness 
may be found in relation and function, if nowhere 
else. What is identical in bodies of similar nature 
is their place in the great organism. The relation 
which the position of one of the hands of a man 
in respect to his body bears to that of the other, is 
that of similarity. Their functions are identical, for 
the body is one, and the function of ministering to 
its needs is one and identical. So the function of 
each member of a class of bodies, so far as filling out 
the one grand organism is concerned, is identical with 
that of every other member of the same class ; how- 
ever much the relation of this individual member to 
the organic completion of its own class may be dif- 
ferent from that of any other. These examples may 
serve to illustrate the light which the fundamental 
proposition of the reason, rightly understood, sheds 
upon the obscure questions of metaphysics. 

Besides the power of the reason to affirm truth in 
advance of the testimony of the senses, and the gen- 
eralizations of the understanding, it has another and 
stronger power. It affirms its own intuition in oppo- 
sition to the testimony of the senses. In other words, 
in opposition to what is, it affirms what ought to be. 
In opposition to what the senses affirm to be true, it 
maintains an ideal truth. We say of a bad man, that 
he is not a true man. We do not mean by this, that 
bad traits are so exceptional to good traits, that they 
are opposed to our generic definition of man ; but 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO GOODNESS. 143 

that we recognize in the <K>od traits what ousrht to be 
possessed by all men. We stand thus, not as theo- 
rizers, guessing what is ; we stand as lawgivers, 
affirming what ought to be. We stand as judges, 
condemning or approving. This leads us to the sec- 
ond class of the propositions of the reason, namely, 
those which refer to the Good. 

SECOND CLASS OF PROPOSITIONS OF THE REASON. — PROPO- 
SITIONS OF THE GOOD. 

Propositions by w T hich we affirm the presence or 
absence of goodness imply a gulf which separates, or 
may separate, that which is from that which should 
be. They imply either a voluntary neglect of the 
true being, or a voluntary acceptance of it. These 
propositions have to do, evidently, with voluntary 
agents. In them alone can material for blame or 
praise be found, for they alone have the power to 
accept or reject this true nature. 

The question which here meets us is, What is the 
basis of these propositions? The answer is, They rest 
upon one of the fundamental instincts of our nature, 
an instinct of action answering to the impulse of 
growth in a plant. The plant has its appointed form 
imprinted upon its germ, so that it cannot swerve 
from it, except under the pressure of outward cir- 
cumstances. Man has, in like manner, the imprint 
of his destiny w T ithin him, only with him it is a mat- 
ter of choice whether he will accept it or not. Sin, 
evil, these are the unnatural, and as such excite a 
certain horror. The impulse to good is the true im- 



144 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

pulse of our nature, and hence the joy we feel in 
yielding ourselves to it. This description is, how- 
ever, merely formal. We must now seek more di- 
rectly the nature of this instinct, by which it is 
related to the instinct of belief, so that the propo- 
sitions of truth and goodness belong to the same sys- 
tem. 

The conception of truth implies that of the organic 
unity of all things. The instinct of belief is the un- 
developed form of this. The moral sense, so far as 
our duties to the world about us are concerned, rests 
upon the recognition of this community between our 
own natures and the nature outside of us. Our du- 
ties to our fellow-men rest upon the recognition that 
their natures are manifestations of the same general 
life which fills out our own, as the different leaves on 
a tree are all filled by the same life; that this life 
is in them subject to the same conditions as it is in us ; 
that it has the same needs and the same rights. The 
good man thus rejoices in the happiness of another 
as in that of another self; while the selfish man fails 
to recognize this community, and rejoices only in 
his own joys, and sorrows only in his private sor- 
rows. This philosophical principle, first distinctly 
enounced by Schopenhauer, is the explanation of 
our moral relations towards our fellow-men. 

The facts of history fall in with this view. So far 
as men recognize in others a common origin and a 
common nature, so far do they extend to them the 
kindly offices of love, generosity, and fellowship. 
We see this illustrated in the history of ancient 
Greece. The various families and clans had each a 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO GOODNESS. 145 

distinct, divine origin. Individuals belonging to one 
were bound together by special ties of good feeling. 
These ties were somewhat weaker in regard to others 
of a different family, although this may have been 
also divine ; while those outside of the limits of the 
connected families that made the nation were con- 
sidered barbarians, without claim to the kind offices 
of life. It is remarked by Grote, that a suppliant 
obtained the right to kind offices and protection, by 
identifying himself with the family from whom he 
sought help. He sat in the ashes of the hearth, or 
otherwise made himself a sharer in the most sacred 
relations of home. The mediaeval church believed 
itself full of the spirit of God. This was its life. It 
could see no reflection of this life outside of itself. 
Thus it felt no obligation, not even that of truth, 
towards infidels and heretics. In modern times, the 
oppression of the negro was felt to be unjustifiable, 
except on the assumption that he belonged to a dis- 
tinct race, that he was not strictly human. The 
Christian doctrine of the common fatherhood of God, 
and the common brotherhood of man, places morality 
on the broadest basis, and prepares the way for that 
universal philanthropy in which each sees himself in 
all. The individual thus sees himself in other indi- 
viduals of the same race. He feels that he has moral 
duties towards the lower animals, just so far as he 
perceives in them a life akin to his own, that has, like 
his, its sufferings and joys. He cannot, indeed, see 
himself reflected from the inanimate objects about 
him, so as to be impelled to kindly offices towards 
them, such as he would demand for himself. The 
10 ^ 



146 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

faith, however, in the oneness. of the world, demands 
something akin to this. What he cannot do in re- 
spect to each he can in respect to all. Thus the 
nature which fails to find its conscious kindred in 
the separate objects of the world finds it in the 
Power which is within and behind all ; and, itself a 
spirit, feels itself in relation and contact with the 
Infinite Spirit in whose life it lives. 

We find thus the basis of the moral relations 
between man and man, and between man and God. 
He who violates these is either unconscious of them, 
or else he feels himself, by the violation, shut out 
from this common relationship, which springs from 
a common life. This feeling of severed connection, 
of isolation, unnatural exclusion, and banishment, is 
the punishment of injustice and wrong, so for as the 
moral sense is concerned, and the fear of it is 
the dread which works with the positive element 
before referred to, to enforce compliance with the 
dictates of the moral sense. In all this, nothing has 
been assumed or invented. The moral sense itself 
has only been reduced to its simplest form. 

There yet remains, however, the virtue of in- 
tegrity, which, standing by itself, has been found 
more difficult to bring under any common system. 
Integrity may be defended on the ground of utility 
indeed, yet it is not practised on that ground. We 
feel that we owe the truth to others, but yet more 
that we owe it to ourselves. Integrity has, indeed, 
a comparatively, though not an absolutely, distinct 
basis. In other words, it branches off very low 
down from the common trunk. It is simply the 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO GOODNESS. 147 

obverse of the good faith which we found to under- 
lie, and to be involved in, all our natural instincts. 
The instinct of acting in good faith is inseparable 
from even the unconscious expectation of good faith 
in the world. Thus the principle of integrity is 
bound up with the veiy first activities of the 
nature.' 

After this presentation of the true theory of the 
basis of morality, we will now notice, very briefly, 
certain false theories, in order to show their falsity, 
and then will return to the principle first enunciated, 
and illustrate its truth and its application. 

The fault with most theories of goodness is, that 
they fail to reach the true and distinctive basis of it. 
Thus it is maintained that it is the command of God, 
which determines what is good and what is not. But 
this assumption defeats itself. It seeks to exalt God, 
but takes away the basis of this exaltation. If we 
are to love God because he is good, then it must be 
because he wills that which is good. If the simple 
will of God created goodness, then there would be 
no moral perfection in him. But, in the second 
place, this assumption does not meet the necessity 
of the case. It implies that I must submit to God, 
either on account of his omnipotence because I 
must ; or else because, he being the Creator, it is 
right to submit to him. But submitting to a con- 
trolling force is very different from submitting to 
a moral law. A man often submits to force, while 
his moral nature protests against it. And if it be 
maintained on the other hand that the will of God 
makes right, because it is right that we should obey 



148 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the Creator, this presupposes a principle of right, 
upon which our obedience is based. 

This theory is, however, little maintained at pres- 
ent, at least by thinkers. It is more common to base 
the moral law upon its utility to the community, or 
to the individual. If it be maintained, as it may 
very properly be, that an action is right because it 
conduces to the common good, we are obliged to take 
a step further, and ask why am I obliged to seek 
the common good. Here we need the moral law as 
much as in the action itself. To escape this difficulty 
recourse is had to my gain from the common good. 
I am a member of society. Whatever injures society 
injures me. It is wrong for me to lie, or I feel it to 
be so, because lying, if generally adopted, would 
strike at the very basis of every community, and I 
should suffer with the rest. But this would not fur- 
nish any sufficient basis for morality. You tell me 
I must not lie, because if everybody should lie I 
should suffer. You might as well tell me not to go 
over a bridge, because if everybody should go over 
at once the bridge would break, or some would be 
crowded off, — perhaps even myself; or that I 
must not drink of a fountain, because if everybody 
should drink it would become muddy. I have not 
noticed that general disposition to cross this partic- 
ular bridge, or to drink of this particular fountain, 
that should lead me to shun either of them. So I 
have not noticed such a general disposition to lie as 
is implied in the prohibition, nor do I know how an 
undiscovered falsehood of mine should have any in- 
fluence to produce this disposition. In a word, if 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO GOODNESS. 149 

undiscovered, as I suppose the lie would be, it can 
have uo effect upon the morals of society, while the 
present gain to myself from the falsehood seems cer- 
tain. It is only a principle of honor that should lead 
me to refrain from what I would not have another 
do. It is the principle of doing as I would be done 
by, and this involves, and thus can in no way super- 
sede, the moral sense. 

Another method is, to account for the moral feel- 
ings by education, according to the circumstances 
under which it must necessarily be conducted. The 
child is born into a world in which it finds itself at 
once dependent upon others. These others, or, in 
other words, society will, at once, impress upon it 
those principles which are most convenient and es- 
sential to itself. Society, being a property holder, 
would impress upon it a regard for the rights of 
property. Society, depending upon the truthfulness 
of its members, would at once impress upon this 
new-comer the duty of truthfulness. The power of 
education is known so well that it need not be in- 
sisted upon here. This principle would account, in 
a large measure, for the different degree of moral 
culture in different places and times. Many of the 
historical facts referred to in illustration of the prin- 
ciple laid down as the true one could be explained 
equally well by this hypothesis. The more the 
interest of one community is separate from that of 
others, the less would its common spirit impress 
upon the new-comer regard for the rights of these 
others. This would account for the old method, 
unfortunately not yet altogether obsolete, of treating 



150 - THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

foreigners as barbarians. As nations become more 
connected, the common necessities of all will mould 
the education of each, while those outside of this 
common bond will still be treated as barbarians ; that 
is, the new-comer will not be taught to pay the same 
regard to them as to those of other nations. The 
fortunes of the Indian or the negro in our own land, 
the conduct of England in India and China, will 
illustrate this. 

In fact, so very plausible is this theory, that we 
should be obliged to admit its force as unan- 
swerable were it not for two considerations. The 
first of these is the pangs of conscience which 
follow the violations of commands held to be based 
upon the moral law, whether they have any real con- 
nection with it or not. Xo other teaching or habit 
excites a similar feeling when broken. There most, 
then, be some distinctive element which we call that 
of the moral principle. The second consideration is, 
that the instances of moral heroism, which we most 
honor, are those which transcend, perhaps even 
offend, public sentiment. 

We have thus considered those theories of the 
moral law which base it upon the abstract, arbitrary, 
and absolute will of God, or upon the selfish interest 
of men. We have now to consider that theory which 
supposes the moral law to be written upon the heart 
of each individual. This is partially, and only par- 
tially, true. What is there is only a principle of 
action or of judgment. It does not tell w T hat acts are 
good and what are evil until it knows what will be 
the history and effects of these actions. It would not 



PROPOSITIONS EST- REGARD TO GOODNESS. 151 

be wrong for me to strike another, unless I knew 
that the blow would give pain. 

In our search for the basis upon which the propo- 
sitions affirming moral decisions rest, we have thus 
reached a twofold foundation ; one, the moral instinct 
which impels us to a certain end, namely, to seek the 
good of others as if it was our own ; the other, expe- 
rience, which tells us what acts tend towards this 
end. 

It is not the purpose of this discussion to teach a 
system of moral science, but only its basis, and, in 
connection with what will follow in another place, 
the logic which should control the formation of moral 
science. For this end, it will be sufficient to look for 
a moment at the general relation in which we stand 
with our fellow-men. This relation is twofold, 
namely, of attraction and repulsion. The element 
of attraction we call love ; that of repulsion consti- 
tutes the element of individuality. The attraction is 
the impulse of the reason, which feels the fundamen- 
tal unity of all life. The repulsion corresponds with 
the understanding, which separates one life from all 
others. This twofold instinct teaches us to seek the 
good of others, and to leave them their freedom. 
Experience alone can teach us what is for their good, 
and how much freedom may be allowed to each, and 
at the same time the freedom of all be preserved. 
This is sufficient here to show us how instinct and 
experience are blended in moral science. After I 
have found what class of acts is conformable to this 
instinct, then I can enlarge this class without refer- 
ence to this instinct^ Here all those systems which 



152 TIIE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

are based upon utility have their plaee. We may 
illustrate this by an example taken from another 
sphere of thought. In the science of music, it is the 
ear that determines originally what sounds are har- 
monious. The understanding, by its analysis, dis- 
cerns what relation is essential to this harmony. 
When this is discovered, a musical system may be 
constructed without the aid of hearing, From this 
we may understand more clearly the twofold founda- 
tion of a complete system of moral science. The 
nature of this science will be considered more prop- 
erly in another place. 

The primary moral instinct is twofold. First, it 
is an impulse, and, secondly, it is a judgment. A 
true nature rejoices at the perfection of another na- 
ture. In part, this rejoicing takes the form of appro- 
bation, but there remains an element which is present 
in the contemplation of all perfection, whether moral 
or otherwise. Man is so much a part of the universe, 
that he cannot help rejoicing in all its varied perfec- 
tions. As he rejoices in seeing human nature leach 
its ideal, that is, to see the idea of human nature 
perfectly manifested, so he also rejoices at every real- 
ization of every true ideal. That is, throughout 
nature, he rejoices to see the idea, which controls and 
strives to manifest itself, wholly triumphant. As there 
is the consciousness of freedom in the soul, when 
its bondage is broken and it has reached its ideal 
form, so there is a similar, though unconscious, free- 
dom, in every triumph of the controlling idea through- 
out nature. This free idealization of the real, or this 
free realization of the ideal, we call Beauty. As truth 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO BEAUTY. 153 

represents to us the abstract existence of things, and 
as goodness represents to us the struggle of the spir- 
itual world to become what it should, or its volun- 
tary, assumption of its true nature, so beauty gives 
us this true nature with no mark of struggle or sepa- 
ration. We rejoice only in this complete perfection. 
Wq have, then, finally, in considering the propositions 
of the reason, to seek a basis for those by which we 
affirm that some objects are beautiful. 

THIRD CLASS OF PROPOSITIONS OF THE REASON. — PROPO- 
SITIONS OF BEAUTY. 

The basis of propositions by which we affirm some 
objects to be beautiful is somewhat similar to that of 
those by which we affirm some actions to be good. 
They differ, however, both in the qualitative nature 
of the judgment, and in the extent over which it may 
be applied. The distinction between the moral and 
the aesthetic judgments is a matter of consciousness. 
The different circumstances in which they are applied 
is a matter of observation. The moral judgment 
extends to moral agents alone ; the aesthetic judgment 
is not confined to the limits of any class. The 
moral judgment involves, as we have seen, the notion 
of obligation under pain of exclusion from the com- 
mon life. The aesthetic judgment recognizes the free 
play, the uncontrolled spontaneity of the result which 
it contemplates. The moral sense is based upon the 
more or less clear recognition of our own nature in 
others, and urges us to live for them as for other selves. 
The aesthetic sense is based upon a vague feeling 
of the oneness between our own nature and that 



154 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of the outward world. It does not necessarily rise 
to the height of religious faith, to the perception 
of a conscious spirit in and through all things, though 
it may do this. More generally it consists in a sense 
of companionship in the outer world, and a sympa- 
thetic enjoyment of its perfection. The interpreters 
of the aesthetic sense are the poets ; and it is remark- 
able that the most philosophical and the most passion- 
ate of our modern poets unite in the explanation of 
the sense of beauty which I have just given. Emer- 
son, who, if he had written with a more equal hand, 
would have ranked with the highest of our later 
poets, who unites in a marvellous manner the mystical 
obscurity of the East, with the proverbial* simplicity 
of the West, a mingling of Hafiz and Franklin, 
writes, in his ode to Beauty : — 

" Is it that my opulent soul 
Was mingled from the generous whole ; 
Sea-valleys and the deep of skies 
Furnished several supplies ; 
And the sands whereof I'm made 
Draw me to them, self-betrayed?" 

And Byron, in whom the passionate sense of 
beauty could hardly be expected to define, or account 
for itself, yet, by the very power of this sense, saw 
the relation between his own nature and that of the 

* Hardly anything could better illustrate the truth to nature, of the po- 
ems of Emerson, than the fact that they are so largely quoted by Tyndallin 
his wonderful book on the Glaciers. While litterateurs found in these poems 
only subjects for derision, the naturalist found in them more truth and 
beauty than in any others. 



PROPOSITIONS TN REGARD TO BEAUTY. 155 

outward world, on which the feeling of beauty de- 
pends, and uttered with a naive simplicity a truth 
which philosophy could only reach by difficult 
thought. Thus, he exclaims : — 

" Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part 
Of me, and of ray soul, as I of them? " 

Wordsworth, who, to a sense of beauty as vivid 
as that of Byron, added a calm and religious con- 
templation, after having felt the wild rapture of 
that kinship to nature of which Byron sings, grew at 
last to a loftier and purer comprehension of what 
beauty in its widest relation actually is. Or, to 
speak more accurately, while Byron passionately, and 
Emerson reflectively, utter the secret of beauty, 
taken by itself, Wordsworth shows what it is in con- 
nection with a lofty religious faith. Thus he writes : — 

" I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and tl;e living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods 
And mountains ; " 

Such is the explanation that Wordsworth gives of 
his love of beauty, after the first fiery passion of his 
soul had passed away. The enjoyment which he felt 



156 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

in these more quiet years was not a contradiction of 
that experienced in the clays of which he exclaims : — 

" The sounding cataract 
Haunted me like a passion." 

The "dizzy raptures" of the earlier times were 
the enjoyment of beauty by itself. The calmer hap- 
piness of the later years was the coalescence of the 
aesthetic with the religious sense, in which each lost 
nothing, but each gained completeness. Neither sur- 
rendered anything to the other ; each found itself in 
the other. I will thus content myself, in this case, with 
the testimony of the poets, as, in some former cases, 
with the testimony of language ; poetry and language 
being each the simple expression, we might say the 
autograph, the one of the conception, the other of the 
aesthetic faculty. 

But though the sense of the community of our own 
nature with that of the outward world is the basis 
of our sense of beauty by itself, it does not consti- 
tute the highest form of this. All mystics live in 
this sense of the oneness of all things. They find, 
vaguely or distinctly, companionship everywhere. 
The poetry and art of the Brahmins was a wild revel 
of mysticism. The same life was felt to be pervad- 
ing all forms, and through this presence all were 
equal ; yet we should not select these works as exam- 
ples of beauty. As the ear may be too morbidly 
sensitive to sound to distinguish and enjoy music, so 
this mystic sense of the one presence in all things, of 
the identity of the inner and outer, may have such 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO BEAUTY. 157 

morbid strength as to destroy the distinctions which 
are also requisite for beauty. The sense of beauty 
recognizes and enjoys, not everything, but the per- 
fection of everything. This may be explained in 
either or both of two ways. It may be said, first, 
that in this perfection do we first come in contact 
with the reality of nature. Why should I enjoy all 
sound? Only in music do I come in contact with 
sound in its true nature and essence. In that, first, 
do I feel the presence and power of that outer real- 
ity, the expression of which sound is. Thus, in all 
beauty do we first hear the voice and see the linea- 
ments of nature as she is, and recognize the life that 
is akin to our own. Or, it may be said, secondly, 
that, owing to our sympathy with the outward world, 
we rejoice in its freedom as if in our own ; and the 
perfection of anything is its freedom. Probably 
these two facts together form the basis of our enjoy- 
ment of outward beauty, as it is controlled by the 
presence of what is called taste. It is taste which 
discerns this perfection, taste beiug the union of the 
discriminating power of the understanding with the 
intuitions of the reason. Thus the propositions of 
beauty involve the culmination of the intuitions of 
the reason, modified, as these intuitions should always 
be, by the discriminations of the understanding. If 
it be affirmed that the explanation of the sense of 
beauty just given is too mystical, I answer, that the 
hard, prosaic mind, that is, the understanding by it- 
self, can make nothing of beauty and seems to have no 
sense for it ; therefore, we should expect that the basis 



7 5 r j TH£ SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of the enjoyment of beauty should lie outside the 
'iniits of the understanding. 

We may illustrate this whole matter by the fad 
that the sense of beauty often becomes weaker in the 
more mature years of life. The more the understand- 
,*jg develops, and believes in, its sharp antitheses, 
And the longer and the more closely the mind is 
'Absorbed in personal cares and occupations, the more 
does life become a unit, cut off from the life about 
; t. In youth this individuality is less fixed. The 
life of youth, fresh from the common fountain of life, 
its limits not yet sharply marked by the understand- 
ing, nor hardened by separate aims and personal 
sares, feels the community that there is between it- 
self and the life about it. Youth is thus the a^e of 
abandon. It is the period of generous impulses 
and of self-forgetf ulness. It forgets itself in the po- 
ntic passion of love, — a passion which is rather of 
the soul than of the senses. It forgets itself in na- 
ture. In forest, stream, mountain, and sky, it finds 
its other self, its completed being. The peace, the 
sublime repose, the unfettered freedom, which it 
lacks, it finds in them. In them, indeed, it finds its 
own moods and passions, but they are calmed and 
transfigured before it. It finds sympathy, but it is a 
sympathy that leads it out of itself. Thus it is 
drawn to them by a passion like that of love. This 
sense of the community of life is the ?f vision splen- 
did " by which, according to the magnificent ode of 
Wordsworth, youth is " on its way attended." As the 
understanding grows sharp in its discriminations, and 
preponderates over the intuitions of the reason, the 






PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO BEAUTY. 159 

mind loses this consciousness of this relationship to 
the outward world, of which it can find no justifica- 
tion or explanation. The sense of personality, as it 
preponderates over the sense of impersonal life, takes 
away more and more the possibility of this conscious- 
ness. Thus the man perceives this vision 



"die away 
And fade into the light of common day. 



In this aspect, the life of the poet and artist, as 
well as that of many a childlike man and woman, 
tiifted with insight though not with utterance, is a 
perpetual youth. Thus, also, the best age of Greece 
represents the youth of the world, — behind it, child- 
ishness ; before it, the maturity of self-poised, self- 
con, cious, and self-limited manhood. To sum up 
our result in general terms, I should say that the 
propositions of beauty do not affirm merely abstract 
being, like the propositions of truth. They do not 
recognize an actual or possible divergence between 
what is and what should be, like the propositions of 
goodness. They recognize the free and perfect man- 
ifestation of that force which constitutes the nature 
of each object, and by which it is kindred to all other 
objects. In other words, it is the idealization of the 
actual, the triumph of the idea which forms the sub- 
stance of each thing, or of all things. 

We must now illustrate the view just presented, 
by a glance at the various spheres of beauty. I re- 
gret that the survey must be very brief, merely suffi- 
cient to show the objective basis on which these prop- 



160 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ositions rest, and their relation to the other proposi- 
tions of the reason. 

The lowest manifestation of beauty is found in the 
melodious and harmonious arrangement of sounds, 
and what is akin to this in the relations of colors and 
forms. We here see what is meant by the expres- 
sion just used, the free idealization of the actual. 
Sounds, as they are uttered at random, are subjected 
to the conditions of the material objects by which 
they are caused. A musical sound is a pure sound. 
It is the result of a succession of undulations of equal 
length. A mere unmusical noise is an impure sound. 
It consists of musical undulations thrown together at 
random. It is no sound, properly so called. It is 
a confused sequence of broken sounds. Harmonious 
sounds are those, the length of whose undulations 
have a certain correspondence, so that the waves of 
the one do not break up, but fall in with, the waves 
of the other. Harmonious sounds thus conform to 
the principles of sound itself, and are independen 
of other conditions. Music is a stripping away from 
sound all foreign, restraining, modifying influences, 
and suffering the sounds to group themselves according 
to their owu law. Our own natures are so in har- 
mony with the outward world, that we rejoice in this 
free play and natural combination of sounds, as if we, 
also, were made free by it. Or, as above intimated, 
in melody and in harmony do we first meet pure sound, 
that is, sound as such. 

What is true of sounds is also true of colors, and 
other specialities of the different senses. Had we space 
it would be interesting to see how, thimiiHiout nature, 



3 



- ~„ „„ ,, , ^ Q , 



PROPOSITIONS IN REGARD TO BEAUTY. 161 

this free naturalness, or harmony, is constantly strug- 
gling to manifest itself; in other words, how natu- 
rally sounds and colors flow into this harmonious 
relation. We have now only to contemplate the rec- 
ognition of this result by the reason. 

Mere sounds and colors are in themselves, how- 
ever complete and harmonious, merely the form for 
the expression of a higher beauty. Harmonious 
sounds are ideal sounds, that is, they exhibit the nat- 
ural relation of sound. There are, however, higher 
ideals, which are to realize themselves. Passing over 
lower forms, we shall hud a good illustration in that 
of life. A living object is beautiful, first, so far as 
it is the free manifestation of life; and, secondly, so 
far as, at the same time, it makes use of the harmo- 
nies of form and color. What makes some living 
creatures appear ugly and deformed is that the free 
play of life seems obstructed in them. Life, being a 
principle of unity, seeks unity of form, ease of mo- 
tion, correspondence of parts. The more variety of 
part, other things being equal, the greater is the tri- 
umph of this principle of life. Any creature which 
is clumsy or misshapen, in which the different ele- 
ments are without subordination, or in which they 
are unduly separated from one another, excites vari- 
ous degrees of disapprobation. In the human form, 
the ideal of life is fully realized, first, on account 
of the harmony of the parts ; secondly, because 
the mask of concealing fur, in which the lower ani- 
mals are wrapped, is cast aside, so that the free play 
of life is unconcealed; and, thirdly, because the 
position of man, being^more opposed to the mechan- 
11 



162 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ieal tendencies of bodies than that of the lower ani- 
mals, every motion requires and displays the pres- 
ence and power of life. But every human form is, 
in some way or other, imperfect. It is to art, then, 
that we look for the full exhibition and idealization 
of life and its forms. 

In man life has reached the higher form of life 
and sentiment. We have now an ideal which is con- 
scious of itself, and in the realm of art we have a 
higher object than the mere manifestation of life, 
namely, the embodiment of the highest thought and 
idea of man. The race seeks to make its ideal real 
before it. This ideal, or highest thought, will vary 
with changing times. The race being a whole, its 
progress being a growth, the highest thought of 
every age will exhibit the point reached during that 
age, and when compared and brought together with 
the highest ideal of other times, will, with them, form a 
whole, as complete as the history of the race. Art 
is the embodiment of this ideal ; consequently in the 
study of aesthetics we have an element introduced which 
did not meet us while speaking of the moral princi- 
ple, namely, that of historical succession. The mor- 
als, so far as they are complete, have no dependence 
upon the past. What is right at one time is always 
right, and is complete in itself. Duties vary, it is 
true, with changing circumstances ; but the principle 
remains the same, and the duty of to-day is complete 
without that of yesterda}^. It is not so in art. Art 
is a historical development, the products of which 
are enduring, and are necessary to make the whole 
complete. The roble deeds of antiquity are re 






PROPOSITIONS EST REGARD TO BEAUTY. 163 

peatecl, when there is call for them in our own age ; 
but the time is gone when the Iliad could be writ- 
ten, or the dramas of iEschylus and of Sophocles. 
The time is passed when the Apollo of the Belvi- 
dere could he wrought in enduring marble, when the 
Madonnas of Raphael, or his Transfiguration, could 
be painted ; and the gorgeous cathedrals of the mid- 
dle age were the growth of a time that is gone by. 
Yet we need all of these, we need even the symbolic 
creations of far earlier times, we need the Sphinx 
and the Pyramids, to give us the whole of artistic 
beauty, — a whole in which all the parts have the 
closest relation to one another, and to that future 
art, which will do its portion towards the comple- 
tion of the great whole. 

If the various products of human art together 
make up the completeness of artistic beauty, what 
must be the beauty of that great whole which includes 
the universe ! This, we must believe, is the outgrowth 
of one vast idea, one perfect ideal. Observation, 
science, intuition, reveal to us more and more of this 
completeness. It involves all the relations of worlds, 
of life, and of histories. This grand idea, which 
seems to us to be infinite, revealing itself iti the 
structure and progress of the whole of creation, is 
the perfect beauty, of which what we discern is but 
a minute part. But still the thought of what beauty 
is, in its completeness, reveals to us something of the 
nature of beauty wherever it is found. It is the per- 
fect manifestation in any object, or group of objects, 
of that idea which forms their life and being, and 



164 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

which is only a fragment of that infinite idea of which 
the universe is the embodiment. 

C . — MEDIATED TROrOSITIONS. 

We have thus passed in review the various forms 
of propositions, with the bases upon which they rest. 
The three bases, so far as our mind is concerned, are 
the perception, the understanding, and the reason. 
The examination has shown how distinct these are. 
But while it has shown their distinctness, it has also 
shown their dependence upon one another. There 
could not be a proposition, even of perception, without 
the help of the analyzing and dividing understanding, 
together with the faith of the reason. There could 
be no proposition of the understanding, which would 
amount to anything more than a generalization of 
particular phenomena, of all of which the senses had 
taken cognizance, without the aid of the reason, 
which gives authority for the enlargement of these 
generalizations into inductions. And the proposi- 
tions of the reason, even if they could be formulated, 
would be abstract and barren, without the aid of the 
understanding. Besides this general relation, there 
is a special one between the propositions of each 
class among themselves. Nearly all propositions of 
the understanding involve previous propositions. 
Thus we reach the idea of mediated propositions. 
If I look at the flowing tide, and say, This move- 
ment of the water is caused by the moon, the 
proposition would be without force, unless I could 
give a reason for it, or unless my reputation for sci^n- 



MEDIATED PROPOSITIONS. 165 

tific knowledge would give authority to my state- 
ment. In this last case it would still be supported 
by some mediation. The listener would repeat it, 
saying, It is so, for I heard a man assert it who 
knows all about such things. If I were appealed 
to, to support the statement, I should be obliged, 
myself, to put it into the form of a mediated propo- 
sition. The movement of this water, I should say, 
is caused by the moon, because it is the tide, and tides 
are produced by the moon. If I were still further 
questioned in regard to this last statement, I should 
have to put that, in turn, into the form of a mediated 
proposition. I should say, We know that tides 
are caused by the moon, because a great many obser- 
vations unite to show that there is this relation be- 
tween the tides and the moon, while theoretical sci- 
ence shows that this relation must exist. 

The first proposition — This movement of the water 
is caused by the moon, because it is a tide, and tides 
are so produced — gives us the simplest form of this 
mediation. It will be remembered, that the formula 
of a proposition was found to be, with some modifi- 
cations, this : The individual is the universal. Thus, 
in the proposition, This movement is caused by the 
moon, the movement is the individual object, while 
the influence of the moon, with its manifold effects, 
is the universal element. In the mediated proposi- 
tion, the particular was introduced to fill up the gulf 
between the individual and the universal, and to bind 
them together. The particular element in this case 
is the tide. This is a tide, and all tides are caused 
by the moon. Expressed in its fullest and clearest 



166 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

form, it would read thus : All tides are caused by 
the moon. This is a tide, therefore it is caused by the 
moon. Thus we fiud ourselves already having to do 
with the syllogism. The mediated proposition is 
technically called an enthymenie. The syllogism is 
the developed enthymeme. The enthymenie is the 
abbreviated syllogism. As the real relation of the 
elements of each are the same, I shall sometimes, for 
the sake of simplicity in discussing the syllogism, use 
the enthymeme in its place, as is commonly done in 
actual reasoning. 



THIRD. -PROOF AND SYLLOGISMS 



In studying the nature of logical terms, we found 
that, practically, each term, though called universal, 
or individual, was, in strictness, a mingling of the 
two elements. Every term implies a universal idea, 
limited by a particular or individual use. Thus the 
word broivn may be called a universal, or, more 
strictly, a particular term, expressing, as it does, an 
abstract color. Etymologically, however, it contains 
the general notion of burning, limited to a reference 
to the color produced by burning. For convenience, 
we will take a term obviously compounded. Logi- 
cally speaking, the words, A happy man, form a single 



NATURE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 167 

term, as much as the word Wine-glass, or the word 
Glass, itself, which last is merely a modification of a 
more general term, meaning to flow, its direct refer- 
ence being to the melting process by which glass is 
formed, The words, A happy man, then, may con- 
veniently stand as an example of a logical term. The 
proposition separates the elements of these terms ; it 
leaves them standing over against one another, thus : 
The man is happy. It affirms the relation, but leaves 
it as a mere affirmation. The syllogism, introducing 
a third term, brings these two elements together into 
a closer union than before. It changes affirmation 
into proof, or at least shows the foundation and neces- 
sity of the relation, as when we say, The man is hap- 
py because he is virtuous. If we represent these 
three elements, the universal, individual, and partic- 
ular, by their initial letters U, I, and P, the formula 
for the term, the proposition, and the syllogism may 
be thus written : — 

Term, I IT. 
Proposition, I— IT 
Syllogism, I P U. 

This last formula needs further analysis and expla- 
nation. Changing our example for another, we Avill 
take this, which has often done service as a model 
syllogism : All men are mortal. John is man ; there- 
fore John is mortal. Here the universal term, mor- 
tal, and the individual term, John, are brought to- 
gether, by means of the common particular term, 
man, as in the formula above written, I P U. 
These letters, it will be seen, may stand in three 



168 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

relations to one another. Eaeh one may in turn serve 
as the middle and uniting element. Thus we may 
have : — 

I P U, P I U, and I U P. These represent the 
three forms of the syllogism. In the first the par- 
ticular, in the second the individual, and in the third 
the universal, serves as the uniting element. We 
thus sec that there must be three forms, and three 
only, of the syllogism. We see further, that the 
relations of these forms to one another is organic. 
An examination will show that each has its own 
place and office. The two last are not merely to be 
changed to the first. They are as essential as the 
first. We took, as an example of the first form, this 
syllogism: All men are mortal. John is man; 
therefore John is mortal. The result is obvious and 
certain, if we are sure of our premises ; but the ques- 
tion remains, how can we be sure of these? The 
first premise is, that all men are mortal. How do we 
know this, and how can we prove it ? Only, certainly, 
by reference to individuals. Every man, of whom 
we know anything, has died before he has reached a 
certain limit. Thus, the particular term, men, and 
the universal term, mortal, are brought together only 
by a series of individual terms. The second prem- 
ise, John is man, requires similar proof. How do 
we know that John is man? Only by bringing to- 
gether the universal qualities that belong to humanit}', 
and showing that John possesses these. John is 
man, because he has reason, etc. Thus are the indi- 
vidual and the particular united by the universal, in 
the third form of the syllogism. The first form of 



FIRST FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 169 

the syllogism represents the process of deduction, 
the second that of induction, and the third I will 
call identification. These three together form a 
triple cord, which cannot be broken, and each is 
needed to complete this cord. We shall proceed 
to consider each somewhat more in detail. It will 
be noticed that, in accordance with the arrange- 
ment of Hegel, the second form of Aristotle is hero 
called the third, and the third takes the place of the 
second. The organic relation of the three requires 
this. As the forms of the syllogism were left by 
Aristotle, they stood in no vital connection. Their 
order was therefore of no importance. 

FIEST FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 
DEDUCTION. 

Mathematical reasoning is sometimes supposed to 
belong in a special manner to the field of deduction. 
Indeed, mathematics is sometimes regarded as the 
only true example of deductive reasoning. This idea 
is referred to here, only that it may be removed from 
our path. The truth is, that although deduction 
plays an important part in mathematical processes, 
mathematics, as such, has no special connection with 
this form of reasoning. What is peculiar to mathe- 
matics is not reasoning at all, but a perception of 
equality and difference. The equation is the formula 
of mathematics from beginning to end. The error 
of including it under the head of deduction is similar 
to that by which Sir William Hamilton maintains 
that the only true induction results from a study of 



170 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

all the individual examples included in the generali- 
zation. This is not reasoning at all. If I say I 
have examined thirty specimens of a certain sub- 
stance, and these have all certain ingredients, this is 
not reasoning. It is only a summing up of a certain 
number of instances. The result is not an induction, 
it is an equation. The equation belongs to mathe- 
matics, and by itself has to do neither with induc- 
tion nor with deduction. Deduction is the passage 
from the universal to the individual, by means of the 
particular. A certain inequality is thus present at 
every step. 

The formal elements of a deductive syllogism are 
three propositions. Of these, two are called prem- 
ises, and the third is called the conclusion. One of 
the premises, being in its nature more general than 
the other members of the svllo<nsm, is called the 
Major premise. The other, being more limited, is 
called the Minor premise, and the third proposition 
is called the Conclusion, and is, at least when com- 
pared with the others, an individual proposition. 
The abstract formula of the deductive syllogism is 
this : The particular is the universal ; the individual 
is the particular, therefore the individual is the uni- 
versal. 

We thus reach the elements which we have before 
seen to be the real and fundamental elements of the 
deductive syllogism, namely, three terms, the first, 
relative^ a universal, the second a particular, and 
the third an individual. These three terms are, in- 
deed, common to all syllogisms, but in deduction the 
universal and the individual are the extremes, con- 



DEDUCTION. 171 

nected by the particular, according to the formula — 
UP I. 

Deduction is regarded as the most certain of all 
reasoning. Indeed, if the premises be true, and 
their relation to one another be complete, there can 
be no error. It will be seen at a glance, however, 
that these its are very important. They will show 
us just what we should be on our guard against in 
all cases of deduction, namely, first, that we do not 
reason from false premises : and, secondly, that we 
do not reason from premises which have no logical 
relation to one another. To insure the proper rela- 
tion between the two premises, it is enough that one 
be broader than the other, that the subject of the 
first be the predicate of the second, aud that this 
common term be used in both with the same mean- 
ing. If the premises be true, and their relation such 
as has been described, the conclusion will take care 
of itself. There can be no rules for deduction, ex- 
cept those that regard these points, which may be 
called preliminary. To give rules for deduction is 
like giving rules for firing a gun. You teach how to 
load the gun, and how to aim it when firing. These 
two points are like the premises, and their combina- 
tion in deduction. In firing, the ball will take care 
of itself. If the charge and the aim be right, it will 
hit the mark. This is like the conclusion of a deduc- 
tive syllogism. Take care of the premises, and the 
conclusion will take care of itself. Although the 
process of deduction is thus simple, abstractly con- 
sidered, yet it has given rise to much difference of 
view, and many animated discussions, and is practi- 



172 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

cally beset with certain difficulties, to 'which it is 
necessary to give some preliminary attention. Espe- 
cially have thinkers differed in regard to the place 
that should be occupied by deduction. Some have 
held it to be the only form of reasoning. This was, 
in a special manner, the view of the elder logicians. 
But its importance, once exaggerated, has been of 
late underrated. It has been urged against the 
deductive syllogism, that the first proposition involves 
all the rest, and that thus nothing is gained by the 
process. Take, as an example, the common and 
commonplace illustration often given : All men are 
mortal. John is man ; therefore John is mortal. 
Now, it is urged, when iu uttering this syllogism I 
say, All men are mortal, I have already included 
John in the statement. It must be admitted, that 
this objection has a basis of truth. But, first, it 
must be considered, that deduction is, as has been 
already stated, only one step in reaching the final 
result. The two premises have been already estab- 
lished by previous reasoning, according to the meth- 
od of the second and third form of syllogism. It 
was one of the weaknesses of the old logic that it 
omitted this fact. Placing the first form of the syl- 
logism alone, except for partial and negative uses, 
atii naming it reasoning, it made it appear weak and 
barren. 

But, in the second place, we must be careful not to 
underrate the importance of the difficulty of bringing 
the two premises together, and thus making obvious 
the conclusion that springs from them. The two 
propositions may have existed long in the world, 



DEDUCTION. 173 

fiamcd and recognized, vet it may be only a stroke 
of genius, or accident, that has brought the two 
together. Thus it was known that light would pro- 
duce changes of color in certain chemical substances, 
according to the intensity of the light. Also it was 
known that every object, the human face, for in- 
stance, radiates from every part light of greater or 
less intensity. In these two propositions, we now 
see to be involved the whole theoiy of photograph)-. 
Yet for a long time it occurred to no one to bring 
these two premises together, and reach this conclu- 
sion. So, also, it was Ions: admitted in general that 
men could look out for their own business better 
than others could for them ; and, though it was also 
obvious that government is a part of their business, 
yet few, or none, brought the two propositions 
together, so as to exhibit the grand result that the 
people can govern themselves better than others can 
govern them. The difficulty in these cases, and in 
multitudes that might be cited, is, that we form a 
habit of looking at our conceptions in groups, as 
they are commonly presented to us. Truths that, if 
brought together, would be seen at once to be the 
major and minor premises, from which is evolved 
some new discovery, being thus bound up each in a 
separate group, are not seen in their true relation to 
each other. It requires a certain genius to disregard 
these habitual associations of ideas, and see things in 
their purely logical aspect. In the first of the exam- 
ples named above, the fact that light would produce 
changes in the color of certain chemical substances 
was considered in its relation to other chemical truths. 



174 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The radiation of light from all bodies was seen in 
relation with optical truths. It needed either a 
lucky chance, or an intuition of genius, to bring the 
two together. It is this fact that makes it so difficult 
in many cases to determine just where to put the 
credit of a discovery. The truth seems to be in- 
volved in statements made previous to the discovery. 
We cannot now see those statements without per- 
ceiving them to be the premises containing the whole 
secret. That is, these truths have now entered into 
new groups, from which we cannot disentangle them, 
and it is very hard to realize that they did not sug- 
gest, from the beginning, all that they now suggest 
to us. The difficulty referred to, namely, that of 
separating allied truths from the groups in which 
they accidentally find themselves, is increased when 
the prejudices or interests of persons would be 
aflected by the change. Here not only the force of 
habit but these stronger influences oppose the logi- 
cal process. Thought needs a pure medium. Even 
a solution of any salt needs quiet and freedom from 
outside influence to deposit perfect crystals. Thought 
is a sort of crystallizing, and any outside and disturb- 
ing influence may hinder or prevent it reaching its 
perfect and natural result. This is the reason that 
religious, moral, and political truth makes such slow 
headway. So many interests, and so many preju- 
dices make a thick and turbid medium, in which the 
fine elements of thought are hindered from grouping 
themselves into the logical form, which is their crys- 
tallization. From what has been said, will be seen 
the futility of objections made against the syllogistic 



DEDUCTION. 175 

formulas, because the starting of each one of them 
contains already the entire process within itself. It 
should be remembered that the complete syllogism is 
the completed argument. The forming syllogism is 
the forming argument ; and we have shown the 
genius and the ^ood fortune which are essential to 
this formation. 

There is another difficulty that is involved in the 
practical use of the syllogism of deduction. It is 
this : that all general truths, except those that are 
absolutely abstract, have more than one side. More 
than one train of reasoning can be evolved from each; 
and these separate trains are liable to lead to different, 
and even to opposing, results. We have, also, exam- 
ples of two truths, each of which is regarded as abso- 
lute, though they may be opposite sides of some one 
more comprehensive truth. These may give rise to 
distinct lines of reasoning, each well founded in its 
starting and guarded in its course, while some of the 
results of each may be directly opposed to those of 
the other. This antagonism between the results of 
different lines of thought, each of which is, so far as 
can be discovered, without flaw, is called an anti- 
nomy. It is not accidental, but is involved in 
the very nature of deduction. It will continually 
meet us in our study of the special forms of deduc- 
tion ; therefore, I shall not further explain or illus- 
trate it here. 

We will now consider the nature of deduction, as 
affected by the nature of the fundamental proposi- 
tion, which may serve as the major premise. This 
proposition may be one of two sorts, namely, prop- 



176 TIIE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

ositions of the reason, and propositions of the under- 
standing. The first class of propositions discussed 
above, namely, propositions of perception, cannot, 
it is easy to see, serve as either major or minor prem- 
ise. Propositions of perception* are, by their very 
nature, individual. Not till they have been general- 
ized by the understanding are they fitted for the 
purposes of deduction. Besides premises based di- 
rectly upon the reason and upon the understand' 
ing, may be reckoned those which derive no perfect" 
support from either, but a partial support from each. 
By these are meant hypothetical propositions, which 
have no certain foundation, but which, if they arc 
not entirely random and foolish, must be based upon 
intimations from these two sources. The hypothesis 
also forms the natural transition between deduction 
and induction, being an imperfect example of each. 
We will now consider the nature of deduction based 
upon the propositions of the reason. 

A. DEDUCTIONS BASED UPON PROPOSITIONS OF THE 

REASON. 

In discussing the propositions of the reason, we 
found that they consisted of three classes : the first 

* In the arrangement of propositions in regard to a single 
object, the proposition of perception stands as the universal 
since it gives the abstract form into which all other knowledge 
in regard to this object is to be introduced. But in reasoning to 
other objects, we can take these separate perceptions only as 
united in a mass, as in induction. For deduction, we must take, 
as best representing the universal, the broad and all-embracing 
intuitions of the reason. 



THE LOGIC OF A PRIORI THEOLOGY. 177 

relating to truth, the second relating to goodness, 
and the third, to beauty. They were based, as we 
found, on the good faith in which we look upon the 
world in which we live. We take it for granted, 
that what surrounds us is real. This reality we find, 
later, to involve a certain necessary relation be- 
tween all things. The same good faith, which, at the 
starting-point of reasoning, requires us to believe the 
world to be real, later, requires us to believe that it is a 
systematic and organic whole. By our veiy nature, we 
recognize a gradation in our estimate of the qualities 
of things. We recognize goodness as the highest 
of these qualities, and the same trust and good faith, 
which makes us believe the universe to be one organic 
whole, makes us also believe goodness to be the 
ruling power in the universe. We feel that, without 
goodness, our own life would be a failure, and, in 
like manner, that, without it, the universe would be 
a failure ; but this, the good faith of which we have 
spoken, will not allow us to believe. What is true 
of goodness is also true of beauty. The universe 
is perfect, and beauty is another name for perfect- 
ness. Our developed reason, then, aided, it is true, 
by the inductions of the understanding, yet superior 
to and broader than these, and furnishing their very 
basis, recognizes truth, goodness, and beauty, as 
logether the rulers of the world. It affirms absolute 
truth, absolute goodness, and absolute beauty. There 
cannot be three absolutes, therefore these three, each 
taken in its completeness, are one. From these 
all begin, and with them all end. This is the a pri- 
ori proof, or recognition of God. The universe is 
12 ^ 



178 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

one. Goodness is as absolute as truth. This prop- 
osition introduces the moral element into our thought 
of the infinite One. Beauty is absolute as goodness 
and truth. This proposition adds to our thought of 
the infinite and- good One, the brightness of glory. 
Truth, goodness, beauty, these are the beginning; 
these, also, shall crown the close. The universe 
shall be one whole. Goodness shall have formed all, 
and the whole shall be perfect in beauty. The be- 
ginning of rational existence recognizes dimly these 
truths. The developed reason recognizes them more 
clearly. Our clearest intuitions, in our best mo- 
ments, affirm them most certainly. We may argue 
against them, but the true mind returns to them 
again, as we return to our faith in the senses. 

In the reasoning referred to above, each of the 
terms, truth, goodness, and beauty, plays, by turn, 
the part of the individual, the particular, and the 
universal. The syllogism resulting would be after 
this form : The absolute is the perfect truth ; good- 
ness is absolute, therefore goodness is the perfect 
truth. Thus each, in turn, would be found equiva- 
lent to, and identical with, the other. 

The fallacies in this form of reasoning, from one 
of the propositions of the reason to another, begin, 
when, instead of taking them in their broadest sweep, 
we take them partially, and attempt to prove their 
identity in their minute elements. This is the com- 
mon method of error in deductive reasoning, and has 
done much to bring it into disrepute. The difficulty 
of reasoning of this kind is, that we fall into an 
antinomy, which is, in many cases, theoretically 



THE LOGIC OF A PRIORI THEOLOQT. 179 

insoluble. We may, however, make the nature of 
this difficulty more easily comprehended, perhaps, 
by reference to the fact, that, while a picture m ly 1)3 
perfectly beautiful, each part of it may not be. Each 
part may be beautiful, only when considered in rela- 
tion to all the rest. So an object, or an event, may 
be a part of a whole that is absolutely true and 
good and beautiful, while by itself it may partake 
of only one, or even none, of these qualities; and 
further, while truth, goodness, and beauty are iden- 
tical in their absolute extent, yet the divisions of the 
great whole may be different as regards each of these 
relations, so that the divisions of the world in the 
relation of beauty do not cover those in the relation 
of goodness. We will now take each proposition of 
the reason, in turn, and show the nature of this error 
in each. 

The absolutely true is the absolutely good and 
beautiful. From this it does not follow that every- 
thing that is, is good or beautiful. Yet many reason 
in this way. There is a philosophy which recognizes 
everything as good. It sees that goodness crowns 
the whole, and affirms that, therefore, it is present in 
every part. It sees neither vice nor crime as really 
evil. Sin is only a necessary step in the soul's devel- 
opment. Thus it cannot be hated, or even dreaded. 
A little thought will show that the reasoning is false. 
The whole may bo good, yet a part may be bad. 
The universal goodness may display itself in neutral 
izing the bad, even in drawing ultimate good out ol 
it, and yet the bad may be simply and wholly bad 



180 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The propositions of the intuitive reason furnish no 
ground for these partial deductions. 

The same fallacy is found in some theories of beauty. 
Because the absolutely true, the grand whole, is per- 
fectly beautiful, it does not follow that each thing is 
beautiful. Yet this fallacy leads many to teach that 
the artist should be a simple cop} T ist from nature. 
Whatever nature does is beautiful. Copy what you 
will, it is urged, and if the picture is true to nature, 
it has reached the end of ait. To see the falseness 
of this, we need only look at any picture. It may 
be perfectly beautiful as a whole, yet there will be 
many points in it that have no beauty, — dark shad- 
ows, dull blotches, that help the general effect, yet 
have no beauty in themselves. So the grandest mu- 
sical compositions have discords, which only make 
the whole grander and more harmonious. 

If we next start with the second proposition of the 
reason, that which relates to goodness, we shall find 
similar fallacies to be prevalent. Because goodness 
rules the whole, many think that it may be recog- 
nized at every step. Men even sometimes base their 
faith in providence on such reasoning as this : Such 
a thing cannot happen because God is good. If there 
is a good God, that cannot be. After an escape they 
will say that they knew they should be saved, be- 
cause they had faith in God. Now, we cannot reason 
thus minutely from the infinite goodness. All that 
we can sav is, that all will work out its s^ood ends. 
The plans of the infinite o-oodriess are lar^e and 

I Co 

broad, and may include much that is different from 
our thoughts of what goodness should effect. In 



TIIE LOUIC OF A PRIORI THEOLOGY. 181 

spite, then, of that faith in the infinite goodness, 
which is inherent in the mind of man, we cannot rea- 
son from it to special events, assuming a thing to be 
true because it coincides with our notion of goodness. 
It is only that which violates this absolute principle 
that we can reason upon with certainty. Infinite evil 
is opposed, and must be opposed, to infinite goodness. 
Finite evil admits of being transformed by goodness. 
But prolong evil to infinitude, and it admits of no 
such transformation. It is only by being temporary, 
and thus leaving opportunity for this transformation, 
that sin and suffering arc compatible with the idea of 
the perfect good. What is true of the universe is 
true of our own selves. When the reason of each 
affirms that we live in a world in which, in spite of 
all appearances, the good is supreme, that this abso- 
lute goodness is working its own plans through and 
for the whole, it affirms that we also are the objects 
and may share the results of this highest law. We 
cannot, as has been seen, argue from this principle to 
the certaintv of finite good fortune, or against the 
certainty of pieces of finite ill-fortune ; but we can 
argue against the possibility of any event which 
claims the power to obscure utterly this promise. 
Thus men have always, even in the presence of death, 
felt superior to it. Faith in the goodness that 
watched over each would not allow the belief of an 
utter exclusion from the fulness of this hope. An- 
nihilation would be such an exclusion and absolute 
failure. 

Reasoning from the fundamental proposition of 
goodness bears the same relation to beauty, that it 



182 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

does to truth. Because the absolute good is one 
with the absolute beauty, it docs not follow that finite 
goodness is always beautiful, or can take the place of 
the beautiful. The belief that it can do so is the 
fallacy of those who would make morals and religion 
the entire substance of life, excluding the element of 
beauty, as if goodness could do its work, or fill its 
place, or were in any way one with it. This is a 
fallacy which has lost much of its hold upon the 
minds of men ; but there have been times and com- 
munities whose whole manner of life was affected by 
it. Our own Puritan Fathers furnish an example, 
that shows that the fallacy of which we are speaking- 
is one that has had influence in the world. Goodness 
was all the beauty that they recognized, and thus 
their goodness, however noble, lacked the charm of 
grace and freedom. This notion was no less a fal- 
lacy, because, in their case, it was the result of a 
reaction against a depraved popular sentimeut that 
mistook beauty for goodness, or which, having beauty, 
was content to let goodness go. 

We have thus considered the fallacy of reasoning 
from the idea of truth or of goodness to either of the 
other ideas of the reason, except where these all 
touch in their full and unlimited being. The first 
fallacy, that of reasoning from truth to goodness or 
beauty, is mostly that of philosophers. That of 
reasoning from the idea of goodness to finite truth 
or beauty, is the fallacy for the most part of theolo- 
gians. We now come to the mistake of reasoning, 
under the same finite conditions, from beauty to 
truth or goodness. This is strictly the fallacy of 



THE LOGIC OF A PRIORI THEOLOGY. 183 

art, but more generally it is the fallacy of the merely 
worldly life. It is often unconscious of itself, or of 
the method of its reasoning. Yet none the less it is 
this reasoning that gives its strongest power to temp- 
tation. 

The reasoning from beauty to truth deserves per- 
haps less harsh language. It is the mistake of the 
dreamers, who are deceived by the beauty of their 
visions to the extent that they accept them for truth. 
What glitters answers for them as well as gold. Out 
of this mistake there springs sometimes a second, 
which is of graver moment. When the dreamer, or 
the enthusiast, discovers that his beautiful vision had 
no foundation, he sometimes gives up all trust in the 
absolute beauty, which is the mould and the result 
of all things. His private disappointment changes 
the world into a desolate w T aste. The reasoning 
from the beautiful to the good is the logic of sin 
and temptation. The heart of the young looks upon 
evil as the unlovely and dreadful ; but when this evil 
comes to it in the form of beauty, when elegance and 
taste preside over and conceal the wrong, when talent' 
lends the seduction of its charms, it cannot believe 
that there is anything bad under so fair a show. 

This short review will show the power and the ex 
tent of these three forms of false deductive reason- 
ing, — the first, the fallacy of philosophizers, the 
second, of religionists, and the third, of art and life. 
We will recapitulate in very few words the result of 
this examination of the relation of these fundamental 
propositions of the reason to one another. Truth, 
goodness, and beauty, in their absolute sweep, are 



184 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

harmonious and identical. Any reasoning from either 
of these, that shall lead to a result opposing, neces- 
sarily, the absoluteness of cither of the # others is 
false, and reasoning from one to finite results, that 
properly belong in the department of either of the 
others, is fallacious. Equally fallacious is reasoning 
from what is comprehended under any one of these 
ideas, to what is comprehended under cither of the 
others. 

The three propositions of the reason, taken together, 
furnish, as has been intimated, the basis of thcolog}^, 
as the first of these propositions, that of truth, fur- 
nishes the ground of belief in that induction which 
is the method and groundwork of science. The 
terms faith and science are used often, as if they 
referred to different objects, and occupied different 
fields of thought. From what has been said, it will 
appear that faith and science are simply elements, 
alike present, though in varying proportions, in all 
knowledge. Faith is only another name for the in- 
tuitions of the reason ; science is only another name 
for the formulating and sj r stematizing work of the 
understanding. Faith is thus the basis of all science ; 
scienee is the accurate developing and formularizing 
of all faith. Faith is the unformed nebula; science 
the completed worlds constructed out of it. Astron- 
omy rests as much upon faith as theology ; for, as we 
have seen, all induction rests upon faith. Science is 
the reducing all the material of faith to conformity 
with the fundamental principles of it. Thus, the 
faith that inspires induction is, in its final and com- 
pletely self-conscious utterance, the belief that the 



THE LOGIC OF A PRIORI THEOLOGY. 185 

world is a complete and systematic whole. Science, 
then, takes nothing by itself, but brings each fact to 
the explanation of all others, and all to the explana- 
tion of each. Science, commonly so called, then, 
makes all that it receives as truth harmonize with the 
first proposition of the reason. Theology will be a 
science only when all of its material is thus reduced to 
connection with its fundamental propositions. Simply 
and practically, the basis of theology is the faith that 
absolute goodness is one with absolute truth and abso- 
lute beauty. Theology will, then, be a science, so far 
as it adopts whatever results of necessity from this 
fundamental idea of absolute goodness, in this double 
relation, and excludes all that conflicts w T ith this idea 
of absolute goodness. It cannot deny known facts in 
the material world. It must, then, seek an explana- 
tion of them that shall make them conform with its fun- 
damental principle, just as ordinary science forms hy- 
potheses and theories to unite facts into its one system. 
From the whole statement it would appear that 
scientific theology can never be otherwise than large 
and general. The more it goes into minuteness, the 
more it endangers itself. It consists in its absolute 
affirmations, and in a few great truths that depend 
by necessity upon these. So far as these are accu- 
rately wrought out, and their connection with their 
starting-point and with one another shown, so far it 
is science. But, in many respects, it must long, if 
not always, remain mere faith, — a luminous ether 
beautifying the night. There are many facts in the 
face of which we can only affirm that all is for the 
best. When we attempt to show how all is for the 



186 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

best we shall fall into uncertain guesses, and our 
science degenerate into a similarity to the fantastic 
world-systems of the ancients. 

After this general discussion, we will now consider 
the reasoning which is proper to deduction from each 
one of the fundamental propositions of the reason, 
taken by itself. 

a. — OF DEDUCTION FROM THE FIRST PROPOSITION OF THE 
REASON. — THE LOGIC OF FHILOSOFIIY. 

The first proposition of the reason, fully stated, is, 
as we have seen, this, that the universe is a complete 
and systematic whole. T\ r e will not spend any further 
time in explaining the nature of this proposition, or 
showing how it is involved in the instinct of generali- 
zation, but will proceed at once to speak of it as a 
basis for deductive reasoning. 

Its first use is negative. It forbids us to believe 
whatever is contrary to this. The syllogism which 
exhibits the form of this reasoning would be of this 
nature : In an organic whole nothing disorderly can 
exist ; the alleged fact would be contrary to order, 
therefore it cannot exist. The most common way of 
presenting this canon of reasoning is this : What is 
inconceivable cannot be believed. This proposition 
has been the occasion of much discussion and mis- 
understanding. It cannot be taken as true in its 
absolute form. Much misunderstanding has arisen 
from the lack of attention to the different classes of 
alleged truths contained under the general term, 
Inconceivable, and the various forms of this incon- 
ceivableness. To conceive of anvthin^ is to bring 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOrilY. 187 



the elements of it together in our thought, or to bring 
itself into conjunction with other objects of thought. 
To conceive, is thus, — what the very composition of 
the word would imply, — to bring together. It bears 
the same relation to the intellect that the imagination 
does to the perception. There are three ways in 
which an object may be inconceivable. The first 
is, when the elements of the object are too vast to 
be grasped, and thus cannot be combined. This does 
not prevent us from believing in its reality. Thus, 
we believe that the universe is an organic whole ; yet 
we cannot conceive of this whole. It is too vast. 
Even if we knew all its elements, we could not bring 
them together in our thought. 

The second form of inconceivableness occurs when 
the alleged fact is contrary to our experience, or will 
not fit in with the habitual association of our thoughts. 
Thus, we cannot conceive of color as separate from 
some object. We cannot look at a rose, and think of 
the rose as colorless, and the redness of it as existing 
merely in our senses. We cannot conceive of it, 
because all the association of our thoughts of color 
is in connection with outward objects. Indeed, no 
abstraction can be conceived, because conception is a 
uniting, that is, a making concrete. The fact, then, 
that anything is inconceivable, because it is contrary 
to the common association of our thought, does not 
necessarily force us to affirm its absolute impossi- 
bility. 

The third form of the inconceivable is that which 
resists the fundamental proposition of the reason, the 
absolute law of truth. Since to conceive is to bring 



188 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

together, we cannot conceive of anything standing 
outside of the absolute order, for standing there it 
stands alone. And, as we cannot conceive of this, 
so, also, our reason forbids us to believe it. 

We may illustrate this principle by the questions 
that have been raised in regard to the miraculous. 
Can we believe in a miracle? If a miracle be a vio- 
lation of the order of the universe, Ave cannot believe 
it. The enlightened reason cannot conceive of such 
a thing, and rejects it as impossible, not because it is 
contrary to our experience, but because it is contrary 
to the very foundation principle of belief. It should 
be noticed, however, that the inconceivability lies 
not in the fact alleged, but in the explanation that is 
given of it. A man may tell us that he saw this or 
that occurrence. His story is strange, but we say 
we will look into the matter, and see whether it was 
so or not. But, if he adds that the event was con- 
trary to all principles of law, we answer without 
thought or investigation, " That is impossible." We 
first see whether the event did or did not occur. In 
other words, we apply to it the principles and methods 
of induction. If it took place, we affirm that it must 
have been the result of some law, known or unknown. 
A miracle, properly so called, is the manifestation of 
some higher lav/ on a plane where only lower ones 
had been at work. If the laws of chemistry, of 
mechanics, of vegetable and animal life, were freely 
active on the world before the appearance of man, 
then the first human act would be a miracle on that 
plane. So the first appearance of vegetation, when 
the burning mass of the earth had grown cool and 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 189 

solid enough to admit of it, was miraculous. So, if 
there is a sphere of spiritual life above us, it has its 
laws as fixed as those of our own life; and any 
manifestation of them in our life would he miraculous, 
but not lawless. This may illustrate how the negative 
reasoning from the proposition under consideration 
does not apply to an alleged fact, but only to the 
suggested explanation of that fact. 

Having thus considered the merely negative use 
of deduction from the first proposition of the reason, 
namely, that the universe is one perfect whole, we 
turn to the consideration of its positive use. As the 
reasoning from the three fundamental propositions of 
truth, goodness, and beauty, forms the a priori part 
of theology, so the reasoning from the first proposi- 
tion, that of truth, forms philosophy. Philosophy is 
made up of this deductive reasoning from the start- 
ing-point of absolute truth, just as science we shall 
find to be the mass of inductive reasoning from ob- 
served and collated facts. This is the present and 
historical use of the terms. There is, doubtless, 
coming, indeed, a time when these two opposite and 
often opposing systems shall be one. Whether this 
final result will be termed philosophy, or science, we 
cannot tell. For the present, we shall use the words 
in their distinctive meaning. 

We have, then, to inquire whether philosophy is 
possible, and what are the logical principles that 
must guide it. We will notice, at the outset, two 
difficulties with which philosophy has to contend. 
The first of these is to find some starting-point. 
That the universe is a connected whole, is a vast and 



190 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

vague statement. It rouses the thinker to construct 
an ideal system, that shall conform to, and be identi- 
cal with, this great ideal. But while it thus stimu- 
lates, it also balks. It furnishes no point on which 
the thinker may lay hold, and from which he may 
start in the course of his deduction. The first diffi- 
culty, then, is, to find an available starting-point. 
The second difficulty is, that, supposing the beginning 
to be made, the very nature of deduction is to con- 
fine itself to abstractions. Deduction is from the 
universal, through the particular, to the individual or 
single. In other words, it is from the broader to 
ever narrower truth. Every universal contains many 
particulars included under it. Deduction, by its very 
nature, can take only one of these. This selected 
particular includes many others. Of these, the line 
of our deduction can take but one. Thus, deduction 
must be more or less abstract. It can never reach 
the real, full, concrete individuality. The individu- 
ality that it reaches will be that of a single abstract 
truth. A second result will follow from this, namely, 
that each universal may furnish, and by its very 
nature must furnish, more than one line of deductive 
reasoning. We have seen that the first course of 
thought must take one particular, leaving others. 
Each of these that is left may furnish the starting- 
point for another line of reasoning. Thus, we have 
two courses of thought, each resting on a sound 
basis, and conducted according to logical rule ; but 
the two have by necessity a certain antagonism. 
This phenomenon is of universal occurrence. We 
shall meet it in every separate department of deduc- 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 191 

tion. The opposition of these two or more courses 
of thought is culled an antinomy. 

The fact of the continual presence of this antino- 
my, shows the fallacy of that reasoning, which affirms, 
that of two opposite statements, one must be true, 
and the other false. This form of reasoning is very 
commonly recognized, even by logicians, as reliable. 
From what has been said, it will be seen, however, 
that the presence of this contradiction does not 
involve the absolute truth or falsehood of either side. 
Each may be true, and yet each in a certain sense 
false, because it is only partial. It will be seen, also, 
that it is only by this varied and often opposing sys- 
tem of reasoning, that any universal principle can be 
fully developed. Each deduction being partial, it is 
only in the whole that perfect truth is found. We 
shall meet this fact of necessary opposition and con- 
tradiction so often, that this abstract statement of it 
must be sufficient here. 

We have found, then, at the very foundation of 
philosophy, two difficulties ; one, that of finding a 
starting-point. This difficulty, however, may be 
merely an obstacle, that, after it is passed, will give 
no further trouble. The other is the necessity that 
confines philosophy, to a certain extent, in the region 
of abstraction. This is a difficulty that can never be 
wholly mastered by philosophy alone, but will always 
hamper and restrain it until it is relieved by some 
power outside of itself. 

In order to make clear these principles, and the 
general laws of philosophy, we must look at its 
history. A hasty glance at this will show us its na- 



1^2 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

tare, and will reveal, and illustrate, the laws and the 
nature, the strength and the weakness, of pure deduc- 
tion. 

From what has been said of the necessity of the 
antinomy in philosophy, we shall expect to find op- 
posing systems, and from the difficulty of obtaining 
a starting-point, we shall expect to find that some of 
these. systems have an unreliable foundation. But it 
should be observed, first of all, and remembered 
through all, that from the beinnnin^ to the end of 
philosophy, taking in systems the most frivolous and 
the most opposed, they all have this in common, that 
they affirm the absolute unity of the world and of the 
universe. They all are alike searching for the prin- 
ciple of unity. And if any affirm, that, being diverse, 
they have been fruitless, we can at starting insist 
that it is a great thing that this absolute unity has 
been recognized and insisted upon, even if philoso- 
phy have done nothing more than keep this before 
the miuds of men, until science should discover what 
this principle of unity is. For our present purpose, 
it is enough that the first proposition of the reason 
has been the basis of every system of philosophy 
that the world has seen, and that philosophy upheld 
the truth of this, in opposition to the unthinking 
many, who looked upon all things as the result of 
separate chances or diverse principles. 

In looking at the Grecian philosophy, three things 
must be kept in mind. First, that it rests upon 
the intuitive perception of the absolute unity of the 
universe, a perception which experience had, as yet, 
by no means confirmed. Secondly, that the reason 



LOGIC OP PHILOSOPHY. 193 

accompanying this philosophy was designed rather to 
illustrate, than to prove, the truth of its fundamental 
principle. Thirdly, that the various systems were each 
an attempt to construct something that should corre- 
spond with the conception of the ideal unity. The 
authors of these systems saw, on the one side, by the 
power of their reason, the grand vision of the abso- 
lute unity. On the other hand, they were by their 
senses brought into contact with a world of manifold 
realities. These opposing principles, of unity on the 
one side and manifoldness on the other, Avere to be 
reconciled, or else one must give way to the other. 
This antinomy of arguments, springing from the rea- 
son on the one side and from the senses on the other, 
is the central element of Grecian philosophy. This 
antinomy finds its most complete expression in the 
Parmenides of Plato, a discussion which Hegel called 
the fairest flower of Grecian philosophy. This praise 
is onby due to it as the complete expression of this 
antinomy, which meets us at every step in our study 
of these systems. The following quotation from Pla- 
to's Timieus will illustrate the relation which the ar- 
guments and special modes of presentation connected 
with these systems had to the grand truth which was 
the basis of them all : — 

" When we speak of that which is stable and firm 
and mentally intelligible, our language should be in 
like manner stable and immutable, and, as far as pos- 
sible, unrefutable and immovable, having in this re- 
spect no deficiency; whereas, in speaking concerning 
its image only, and as compared to it, we should use 

13 



194 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

probable arguments that arc in strict analogy there- 
to."* 

Those, therefore, to whom the ancient philosophiz- 
ing appears weak, should keep in mind the distinction 
between the object of absolute intuition, on the one 
side, and the attempt to make this clear and tangible 
on the other; — an attempt the success of which was 
rendered impossible by the imperfection or non-exist- 
ence of science. > 

To illustrate what has been said more minutely, Ave 
will glance at a few of the principal systems of Gre- 
cian philosophy. We first meet those which seek 
some material basis for their philosophical intuition. 
Thus, Thales affirmed the principle of all things to be 
water. Anaximenes affirmed it to be air. We can- 
not be surprised at such divergence. The universe 
is a circle that might as well begin in one point of its 
circumference as another. These early reasoners, 
confining themselves to the circumference, put, one a 
finger here, and another a finger there, each claiming 
that its own point was the beginning. In other words, 
if all the substances in the world have a common 
basis, and may pass into one another without funda- 
mental change, one of these substances may as well 
represent the whole as another. Such discussion is 
like that which might arise in regard to ice, water, 
and vapor. One might maintain that ice was frozen 
water; another that water was melted ice. There 
can be no settlement of the dispute, except by affirm- 
ing that neither ice noi water nor vapor is the basis 

* The translation is taken from that in Bonn's Plato. 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 195 

of the others, but that some common principle, which 
is neither, but which may take form as either, is the 
basis of each and all. This was clone in Grecian phi- 
losophy by Anaximander, of Miletus. He affirmed 
that the Infinite, or what we may better translate the 
Undetermined, was the principle of all things. This 
abstraction meant to him, probably, what our word 
matter does to us, Matter is the undetermined sub- 
stance that forms the basis of all material substances. 
The absolute principle, then, is not lire or air, or any 
other element, but the substance which underlies 
everything. 

While the philosophers that we have been consid- 
ering saw only the circumference of the circle, but 
deserve the highest praise for discerning that it was 
a circle, and not a. mere mass of disconnected points, 
Xenophanes and the Eleatic school plunged at once 
to the very centre. They made no attempt to recon- 
cile the absolute unity with the apparent manifold- 
ness. They contented themselves with affirming the 
absolute One, and denying everything besides. Man, 
they say, is blinded by the senses. He takes their 
varied presentation for reality ; but nothing is real 
save the One. Xenophanes looked up into the blue 
of the heaven, and cried, "The One is God." Zeno, 
the Eleatic, carried these doctrines to their extreme, 
by proving with subtle arguments that there could be 
no such thins: as chansre or motion. The paradoxes 
by which he maintained this result spring from that 
antinomy which we have seen to lie at the very basis 
of deductive reasoning. Matter, in one aspect, is 
infinitely divisible. In another aspect, it consists of 



196 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

finite elements. The results reached hy these abstract 
arguments do not hold good in regard to the concrete 
substances. The paradoxes of Zeno, though com- 
monly viewed as something special, arc only examples 
of that constantly recurring antinomy which has so 
often confused the minds of men. They only brought 
to a sharp contrast that divergence between the reason 
and the sense which we have found to be the funda- 
mental principle of the various systems of the Gre- 
cian philosophers. 

The reason had thus announced its fundamental 
proposition, and had set at open defiance all the 
power of the senses. Those who believe that the 
proposition of the absolute unity of the universe is a 
broad generalization from facts, would do well to 
observe, in addition to the arguments which have 
been already adduced, this fact, that its first distinct 
enunciation was made in defiance, and as a defiance, 
of the force of external facts and the results of obser- 
vation. But, in this way, the reason defeated and 
contradicted itself. It began by an affirmation of 
absolute unity, and ended by reproaching the wdiole 
apparent confirmation of things as false, and as in 
opposition to this unity. The next step was to bring 
about an actual harmony between these two elements. 
The means first at hand to accomplish this w T as tho 
establishment of some general law. To Pythagoras, 
this harmonizing law was that of number; to Em- 
pcdocles, it was the law of attraction or love; to 
Heraclitus, it was the law of change, the very per- 
manence of succession and difference being made a 
principle of unity. 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 197 

Although the theories that have been mentioned, 
and others which might be added to them, may seem 
at first sight to anticipate some of the results of 
modern science, they were at the time valueless, ex- 
cept as illustrations of the groat principle which un- 
derlies them all. They showed that the absolute 
unit}' was possible. They made it conceivable ; but 
as they rested on no basis, and sought no verification 
of induction, they remained mere floating theories. 

Socrates first found any solid support for the next 
step in the history of philosophy. The early philoso- 
phers, and in particular Xenophanes, had uttered the 
first proposition of the reason, that of absolute truth. 
Socrates reached the second, that of an absolute 
goodness, independent of law or custom. As Xenoph- 
anes, however, had no system of truth, but only 
sought to impress upon the world the knowledge and 
the conception of a truth actually existing, so Socrates 
constructed no system of morals. He sought simply 
to awaken the moral sense in the minds and hearts of 
his hearers. He would make them feel, by scattered 
instances, that there was a moral law, which was su- 
preme above all things. 

Plato completed the foundation of all absolute de- 
ductive reasonino-. He enunciated the third funda- 
mental proposition of the reason, that of beauty. 
As Xenophanes affirmed the absolute truth, and 
Socrates, the absolute goodness, so Plato affirmed 
the absolute beauty. "If the world, then, is beauti- 
ful, and its artificer good, he evidently looked to an 
eternal pattern, but if it be without beauty . 
he must have looked to one that is generated, It is 



198 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

evident, however, to every one, that he looked to 
one that was eternal, for the universe is the most 
beautiful of generated things, and its artificer the 
best of causes."* Not only was beauty the end of 
the universe, it was even the basis and end of virtue 
itself. Goodness is a power that draws towards it- 
self, by the attraction of its beauty, which kindles an 
imperishable love for it. The morality of Plato, as 
has been well remarked, is not so much an outward 
rule, as the aspiration after perfection. 

While one side of the antithesis that lay at the 
foundation of Grecian thought led to the grand re- 
sults which we have thus contemplated, the other 
led, by equal necessity, to very different issues,, 
The reason and the senses, cried the Eleatics, are at 
variance, consequently the senses are false. The 
opposite deduction would be the truer one for those 
wdio put their faith in the senses, and would as natu- 
rally result from the premise ; while at the same time 
the result would not lie far off, that if the very foun- 
dations of belief are at variance, there can be no reli- 
ance upon anything. The senses and the reason con- 
tradict one another. Even the senses contradict each 
other. This contradiction might as well destroy all 
grounds of belief, as elevate any one at the expense 
of the others. Thus there arose, first, sophistry. 
This played with the differences and difficulties of 
belief, and settled down to the conviction that ex- 
pediency is the only criterion of truth. To the soph- 
ists, however, belongs the credit of opening that 

* Bohn's Plato. 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 199 

practical path, by which Socrates reached the thought 
of the absolute good. lie changed the practicality 
of expediency to that of morality. Afterwards, came 
a school of absolute scepticism. Each side of the 
antithesis overthrew the other. Nothing was fixed or 
certain. Still, however, men longed to reach the 
clear heights of certainty which they saw rise before 
them, separated by an impassable gulf. The Stoics 
sought, by the sternness of self-reliance and complete 
subjugation of the lower nature, to fight their way to 
these regions of calm repose. The Epicureans were 
content to contemplate them from the pleasantness of 
their indolent ease. The new Platonists brought the 
power of imagination to accomplish what reasoning 
could not. Visions and trances brought the distant 
heights near. They fell asleep, and dreamed them- 
selves in the presence of the perfect truth, and when 
they awoke, their dream seemed to have been a re- 
ality. 

On looking back upon the Grecian philosophy we 
see, then, rising in grand sublimity, the three truths 
of the reason, like three mountain summits, which 
spring up from a common base. These heights are 
often obscured by doubts and misapprehension, but 
they still stand, the only starting-point or basis of 
true knowledge. The great problem was to find a 
means of connection between these and our common 
life. The special systems were attempts, and unsuc- 
cessful ones, to accomplish this. In what has been 
said, I have made no reference to Aristotle. This 
omission has been intentional, for with him we see the 
beginning of a new order. Aristotle perfected the 



200 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

system of deductive reasoning, so far as to give it a 
perfect form, and to guard it against mistake. It was 
a bridge, over which one could pass between the 
ideal and the actual. All that was needed was to 
have some point on either side on which it could rest. 
This was lacking. Aristotle, in maintaining the ne- 
cessity of induction, did not develop and perfect its 
principles as he did those of deduction. His theory 
of induction, as so often happens with theories in the 
history of thought, was in advance of his practice. 
He thus had reached by induction no general truths 
on which his syllogistic apparatus could rest. And 
on the other side, the absolute truth of the organic 
unity of the universe, rising smooth and unbroken, 
offered no place on which a deductive syllogism could 
be based. We have thus in the case of Aristotle, and 
still more in that of the school men who professed to 
follow him, a constant practice, or we might even 
say play, with the deductive formula. This, how- 
ever, degenerated more and more into mere formalism. 
It was very much like what the practice of engineers 
in making bridges would become, if for a long time 
they occupied themselves in constructing and recon- 
structing: their works alonsr the side of a chasm, while 
they were unable to find any means of stretching 
their structures across it. 

V\ r e may illustrate this position by reference to the 
first proposition of the reason, which furnishes the basis 
and sphere of philosophy. This suggests and author- 
izes such a syllogism as this : A perfect and syste- 
matic whole must contain whatever is essential to this 
completeness ; the universe is such a perfect and sys- 






LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 201 

tematic whole ; therefore, it must contain whatever is 
essential to its completeness. In this, all philosophies 
agreed. Each constructed its system, the only proof 
of which was its perfection. But to construct such 
a system with accuracy there was needed some certain 
element in the real world, some special fact, which was 
undoubtedly based upon truth. If this were found, 
there would a definite starting-point for the work. 

Thus the naturalists of the present age knew that 
all the creatures of the pre-adamite world were per- 
fect organizations, containing all the elements neces- 
sary for their existence ; but yet they could not, on 
this basis alone, construct the plan of any one of these 
organizations, the remains of which had not been dis- 
covered. So soon, however, as a single bone was 
found that belonged to one of these hitherto unknown 
organizations, the conditions of the problem were 
changed. The naturalist felt authorized to assume 
the special elements necessary to the perfection of 
an organism of which this bone Avas a part ; and the 
result showed that the assumption was ay ell grounded. 
So philosophy needed not only, its abstract starting- 
point, the affirmation of absolute truth ; it needed, 
also, some particular truth for the free working of its 
processes of reasoning. Its S3 r stems had been fair 
and rounded worlds, indeed, but worlds floating in 
the air, reflecting only the beauty of the absolute 
truth. Not till the starting-point just described 
should be given, aa t ou1c1 its system be a real AA T orld, 
one with the absolute truth. 

With the aAA T akening of modern science, hoA\ r eA r er, 
men began to rear out of solid facts foundations for 



202 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

legitimate deduction ; while, on the other hand, Des- 
cartes at length succeeded in finding a solid foothold 
and secure resting-place on ihv .side of abstract truth, 

which had so long set at defiance all attempts to scale 
its difficult heights. 

This sure resting-place, that was discovered by 
Descartes, is expressed in his famous sentence, "7 
think; therefore lam." *Cogito; ergo sum." Here, 
at last, was found a certain truth, a special starting- 
point for deductive philosophy. To realize the im- 
portance of this starting-point which was furnished 
by Descartes, we must have clearly in our thought 
the difficulty which it was designed to meet. Phi- 
losophy believed in its great ideas ; the constant 
search to realize them showed its faith in them. But 
at the same time its results threw a haze of scepti- 
cism over the individual facts of the world. You 
say, "I see the world about me." — " Nay," answers 
philosophy, "you have only an impression on your 
senses." You say, "I run," "I leap." — "Nay," 
answers philosophy, "you think you run and leap." 
"At least, then," you answer, "at least, I think;" 
and philosophy recognizes, with joy, something that 
admits of no doubt. The starting-point for construct- 
ing the system, which it believed could be construct- 
ed, is at last found. Real existence is reached. 
The gulf that separated it from pure thought is 
spanned. '^ I think; therefore I exist." Descartes 
did not, however, make the fullest use of his discov- 
ery. H- did not construct a system of deductive 
philoso^Lj from this basis. He simply asked, "How 
do I k ;>•* that this proposition is true?" and having 









LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 203 

determined this, he sought to find other propositions 
to which the same test of truth might be applied. 
The undertaking, by its very nature, could, however, 
result in nothing definite, because the assumption at 
starting was, that this proposition stood out, distinct 
from all others, in absolute certainty. It was, thus, 
by its very nature, fitted to be a germ out of which 
other propositions could be developed, not a pattern 
to furnish a test of their reliability. 

The formula, Cogito; ergo sum, strictly carried out, 
would lead into a narrow egotism. Personality and 
personal relations would be the criterions of truth. 
It would lead, in its common use, merely to theo- 
logical results. These, theology on the one side, 
and egotism on the other, would be the two sides 
of the antinomy that would spring from this founda- 
tion. 

Looking at the basis established by Descartes, Ave 
see that he has only half stated it. Not only may 
we say, Cogito; ergo sum, but also, with equal truth, 
Cogito; ergo cogitatio est, " I think ; therefore thought 
is." Whether anything else is, or is not, thought is ; 
and in thought we have a real, manifold, and organ- 
ized world. While the first path leads to personal 
relations, and must, necessarily, have more or less 
subjective results, the other leads out into the unlim- 
ited realm of thought, and brings us into contact 
with realities outside of us. For thought is not my 
thought merely ; it is independent of me. My exist- 
ence or non-existence has little to do with it. It 
is a force which controls me, but it is vaster than I. 
All I know of any existence is what this tells me. 



204 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

/ think; therefore thought is. By this formula is 
reached something actual and external. 

Hegel is the first who developed this side of the 
Cartesian principle. I do not remember, indeed, 
that he anywhere recognizes this relationship; but it 
is none the less true that this is the foundation of 
his philosophy, the source of his power, and also the 
occasion of whatever is defective in his system. 
Hegel first enunciated, and consciously realized, what 
has lain at the foundation of all speculation and study, 
namely, that the laws of thought and of being are 
identical. In other words, lie simply affirmed the 
reality of thought. Thought is real, and thus when I 
have to do with thought I have to do with a real 
world. He also saw that this is all the reality with 
which we can ever come in contact, that the world 
can never exist to us except as thought. At the same 
time he had that faith in thought, without which 
there could be no thought. He therefore affirmed, 
not merely that the world of thought is real, but that 
it is the real world ; in other w r ords, that thought and 
being are one. 

I have said that this lies at the foundation of all 
scientific thought. Philosophy and science are the 
attempts to express the relations of common things 
in the relations of thought. Now, if the laws of 
these two are not identical, the whole struggle of sci- 
ence as well as of philosophy is unnatural and delu- 
sive. If the laws of nature are not the laws of thought, 
then the scientific treatment of nature is a forcing and 
distortion. It is easy to ridicule this assumption, but 
jlo one can really think, who does not have faith in his 



logic of rniLOSoriiY. 205 

thought, and faith in thought is simply this confidence 
that it is essentially oue with the objects of thought. 
It is impossible to prove it, for proof would be an ap- 
peal to thought, and would thus assume the faith sup- 
posed to be proved. It is as impossible to disprove 
it, for confidence in the negative argument would in- 
volve confidence in thought. It is further impossible to 
rest in a state of scepticism, and to regard the whole 
question as one of impossible solution. Our f&ith in 
our thought is the strongest instinct of our nature. 
To disturb this confidence requires the most ?,ubtile 
argument. It requires us to surrender the foundation 
of our consciousness at the demand of the intellect. 
Thus even to doubt the reliability of thought, at 
the demand of thought, would imply more faith in it 
than to believe anything else at its bidding. We can 
only inquire into the nature and extent of this corre- 
spondence between thought and the outward reality ; 
and this problem will meet us in the last general 
division of this work. Faith in thought, it will be 
observed, does not involve faith in the completeness 
of my individual thought, but of absolute thought. 
The laws of the world are no less real that I often 
disobey them. The laws of thought are no less reli- 
able, because my thought may be narrow and weak. 
This expression of the identity of the laws of 
thought with those of all reality is simply the utter- 
ance of what has all along been the moving power of 
science. 

Hegel only uttered openly and consciously what 
every thinker, whether philosopher or day laborer, 
had unconsciously taken for granted. He simply clis- 



206 THE SCIENCE OE THOUGHT. 

closed the principle which is involved in the instinct 
of thought, that most universal of all the instincts of 
hum unity. 

But the clear comprehension of this principle gave 
to Hegel a wonderful power, and its enunciation 
marks one of the epochs of the history of philoso- 
phy- 

To what has been said must be added that Hegel 
tirst saw the true nature of thought itself, and com 
prehended its manner of growth. He gives to Kant 
the honor of first discovering that the antinomy of 
thought is a necessary element in its progress ; but 
to Hegel himself belongs the honor of first incorpo- 
rating this essential antinomy into a system. To 
him also belongs the honor of recognizing the finite- 
ness of this antinomy. AVith Kant, this opposition 
of results, based on apparently irrefragable deduction, 
imposed an impassable barrier to the advance of 
absolute knowledge. Hegel saw that this division 
and opposition was merely a single stage in the de- 
velopment of thought. He saw that this antinomy 
was only the preparation of a higher and more per- 
fect unity, which from this process of development 
Had lost its abstract ness, and become concrete, the 
l ast stage involving all the elements of the preceding 
r mes. 

Thus recognizing the fundamental nature of thought, 
and the identity of the laws of thought with those of 
vll being, Hegel was provided with an instrument of 
great power, if not for the discovery, nt least for the 
organization and systemization of truth. His philos- 
ophy is, it must be remembered, a method, not a 



LOGIC OF PHILOSOPHY. 207 

result. This highest development of philosophy 
only illustrates and confirms that one of the funda- 
mental maxims with which we started, which asserts 
that deduction by itself cannot reach fiuite or individ- 
ual facts. It can give the great form which these 
facts must assume, the absolute law which they must 
follow ; the facts being given, it can discover their 
necessity and fundamental relation ; but by itself it 
can never get beyond these fundamental princi- 
ples. 

From what has been said, also, will be seen a still 
further limitation of the Hegelian philosophy. A\ r e 
have seen that the fundamental starting-point, which 
is thought, may give rise to two different systems of 
deductive truth. One of these starts with the formu- 
la, cogito; ergo sum; the other starts practically with 
this, cogito; ergo cogitatio est. The one leads to the 
emphasis of personality, the other to the emphasis 
of law. Hegel, taking the second path, leads us 
into the realm of absolute causes and relationships. 
The tendency of his method has been recognized all 
along to lead to the practical neglect of personality 
and free agency. All things are seen to be the prod- 
uct of an endless and resistless development, of 
absolute forces, working often by an inevitable oppo- 
sition to each other, but thereby preparing a more 
perfect consummation. This view of things brings 
out truth that otherwise would be hidden. It is 
essential to the fundamental and scientific view of 
the world and of history. With other elements of 
the same system, it has given an immense start to 
the sciences, from the lowest to the highest, yet it is 



208 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

Qone the less imperfect. The other direction is still 
Dpen. The cogito; ergo sum, is as true as the cogito; 
trgo cogitatio est. The system of Schopenhauer, 
indeed, which affirms, instead of thought, the will 
to be the reality of all things, represents the antithe- 
ses to the system of Hegel. These two magnificent 
systems stand over against one another, the halves of 
a divided world. They stand, it must be noticed, in 
antithesis, not in opposition, to each other. Their 
relation is polar. Each is at heart the other. The 
will is the undeveloped thought. Thought is the 
expanded will. Thus thought is not, as Schopenhauer 
intimates, the accident of will. It is its other side, 
its rounded and completed self. Each of these 
great systems is thus imperfect. The system of 
Hegel needs the grand motive power of the will ; 
that of Schopenhauer the expansive power of thought. 
It is less a system than an affirmation. The to ill of 
Schopenhauer, indeed, is not free will, for there 
can be no freedom without thought. Thought and 
will are only in perfection even in idea, when 
united, as doubtless they will be in the future, by 
some system grander than any that the world has 
seen. 

The fundamental antinomy of speculative philoso- 
phy has long been felt to be that between freedom 
and personality on the one side, and necessity and 
law on the other. This antinomy admits, as yet, 
only a practical solution. Reason has not yet been 
able fully to unite its elements. Yet they are united 
in every conscious act of our lives. Their only per- 
fect union is found, however, in virtue. This unites 



LOGIC OF ETHICS. 209 

the absoluteness of law with the absoluteness of 
freedom. In this, the will and the intellect are in 
harmony. Thus the course of our thought has 
brought us to the consideration of deduction from 
the second of the propositions of the reason, namely, 
that which affirms the absolute good. 

b. — DEDUCTION FROM THE SECOND PROPOSITION OF THE 
REASON. — THE LOGIC OF MORAL SCIENCE. 

We have already seen the basis on which moral 
judgments rest. Without repeating what has been 
said, it will be sufficient to refer generally to the fact 
that the moral sense branches in three directions, 
recognizing the duties towards one's own nature, 
especially that of integrity, the duties towards one's 
fellow-men, and those towards God. We thus see 
the fundamental principle dividing itself; and it is 
the business of moral science to trace out each of 
these divisions in its reference to the others, and in 
its own ramifications. It is simply the duty of logic, 
in relation to moral science, to show how far it is a 
system of deduction, and the special difficulties under 
which this deduction labors, and to guard against the 
mistakes into which it is apt to foil. Our business 
is, then, by no means to construct a system of moral 
science, nor the outlines of one, but simply to show 
the conditions of the science, and to criticise its 
methods. 

In taking the first step we discern that the simple 
division already proposed is in some respects arti- 
ficial. It is impossible to make a clean division in the 
H 



210 THE SCIENCE OF THOUOIIT- 

manner prescribed. For, first, our 
involve those to ourselves and towards others. It is 
his will that we should serve our fellow-men, and 
preserve the integrity of our own nature. Secondly, 
our duties towards ourselves include, besides integ- 
rity, those to God and to man. One who lives sel- 
fishly corrupts and degrades his own nature. And, 
in the third place, our duty towards others includes 
our duty towards God and to ourselves. One who 
corrupts his own nature is a power of corruption in 
society. He who lives an absolutely irreligious life 
helps to lower the standard of social life about him. 
We might, then, construct a system of moral science 
upon any one of these bases. But yet, such a system 
would not be perfect. Though my duty to my 
neighbor is involved in my duty to God, yet I should 
not fulfil the duty if I did it merely from this second- 
ary motive. If I gave help to another, simply be- 
cause it was God's will, with no feeling of love or 
sympathy, the act would be cold and heartless. So, 
also, my duty to myself requires me to exercise 
charity towards others ; but if I should assist others 
merely to perfect my own nature, as an act of moral 
gymnastics, the act would have little beauty. It is 
in this way that much benevolence fails of its end, by 
being mechanical, either from a desire to obey God 
or to perfect one's self. At the same time it must be 
admitted that the act is also imperfect if done without 
these other considerations. An act of benevolence 
has its true dignity only when all three of these ele- 
ments enter into it. One must have a feeling of 
sympathy, an aspiration after completeness, and a 



LOGIC OF ETIIICS. 211 

sense of the infinite love of God, of which one is the 
instrument, in order to give to a deed of kindness 
the full perfection of its beauty. 

This, then, is the first difficulty that moral science 
has to contend with, that each heading, though dis- 
tinct from the others, yet includes the others ; and 
that thus all its principles are involved at every step. 
We might then expect a freedom from that antago- 
nism which we have found elsewhere. Principles that 
are so involved ought, one woidd think, to be at least 
harmonious. The contrary result springs from these 
conditions. The elements that when combined flow 
together naturally, when separated are apt to stand 
over against one another in stiff and harsh opposition. 
In other words, we find here, more strongly than in 
any other form of deduction, that antinomy which is 
inseparable from all deduction. 

For, first, each of these principles, when carried 
out, falls itself into division, often into stern oppo- 
sition. Thus our relation towards God involves 
worship and obedience. Taking the first of these, 
worship, by itself, we find that it involves, also, two 
elements, first, that of the spirit; and, secondly, that 
of the form. This last, the element of form in 
worship, is a necessity of our human constitution ; 
first, in order that many may unite in a common 
service; secondly, that the thought of the worshipper 
may be. confined and directed. Now, when we have 
enumerated these distinct elements that spring out 
of the central idea of our relation to God, we have 
named the causes which, perhaps, more than any 
others, have served to convulse the world. The 



212 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

questions of religious form and religious liberty, 
the question of faith and works, these have brought 
divisions into the church, the effects of which have 
extended far outside of it, and have shaken the whole 
structure of society. What has given the promi- 
nence and the violence to these controversies is the 
fact that each partisan could reach his position by 
what seemed to be a faultless deduction from a 
starting-point that was unquestioned. Religion does 
need faith, and without faith works are nothing. It 
does need works, and without works faith is nothing. 
Each argument is legitimate, The church does need 
unity. It does need liberty. Here, too, each 
deduction is legitimate. Yet either carried to its 
extreme may be false, because it is partial. 

In our relations to others there is the same diver- 
sh\y of elements. We are to respect their liberty, 
and, at the same time, to work out their welfare. 
Here we find at first glance the foundations of politi- 
cal revolution, and, to a great extent, of political 
parties. The conservative and the radical appeal 
each to one of these principles. The one pictures 
the danger of a disorganized society, and shows how 
every change in the direction of reform is in the di- 
rection of the general removal of all the old safe- 
guards. The other insists upon the rights of the 
individual, and shows the danger which results to 
these rights from an excess of authority. In practical 
benevolence we find the same difference. One will 
see what is absolutely best for another, and will seek 
to brim? it about without regard to the other's wish 
or will. Another will respect the individuality of the 



LOGIC OF ETHTCS. 213 

person that is suffering, and allow him to ruin him- 
self if he will. Hence arises, also, the discussion 
in regard to the best means of assisting the poor, 
such as that in regard to poor-rates and the like. 
One will picture the suffering of (he poor and the 
need of alleviating this. Another will insist upon 
the virtue of foresight, and urge that the poor-rates, 
by making men improvident, increase the evil they 
were designed to prevent. 

Our duties to ourselves involve similar divergence. 
We have many needs and many relations. It is the 
duty of a man to provide for his own material wel- 
fare. Also, it is his duty to preserve his integrity 
and to develop his spiritual nature. These duties 
may come into collision, and one of them may have 
to be sacrificed to another, and it often causes grave 
difficulty to know where the line shall be drawn. 

We meet, if possible, graver difficulties when we 
consider the collisions that may arise between duties 
that grow out of one of these spheres of morality as 
opposed to those which spring from another. Such, for 
instance, is the law of truth and integrity on the one 
side, and the law of benevolence on the other. Sup- 
pose that, by speaking the truth, I shall cause another 
to suffer an unjust death ; is it my duty to tell the 
truth or a falsehood? If we look at examples we 
shall find that our applause is bestowed almost equally 
upon the obedience to either one of these principles 
in defiance of the other. Though abstractly we should, 
perhaps, say that the law of truth is the highest, yet 
we honor a falsehood, especially a self-sacrificing one, 
which saves the life or honor of another. Lucilius 



214 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

cried out to the enemies of Brutus, "I am Brutus " 
and received the stroke that was meant for his friend. 
Desdemona, with her dying breath, denied the guilt 
of Othello. We feel in these falsehoods the presence 
of a magnanimous virtue. On the other hand, if ;i 
man, by steadfastness to what is just and honorable, 
plunges his family into poverty and suffering, we 
honor him. We honor Jeannie Deans for her truth- 
fulness. In the novel of Victor Hugo, " Les Mis- 
erables" we honor the nun who saves the life of Jean 
Valjean by a lie; and we honor Jean Valjean, who, 
rather than abstain from telling the truth, brought 
misery upon himself and others. The long line of 
martyrs is made up of those who would speak the 
truth in spite of all things. 

Moralists have been much puzzled to know what to 
do with these cases of extreme conflict. Thus, Whe- 
well hardly ventures to intimate what is right in such 
cases. He shrinks from saying that a lie is ever ex- 
cusable, for fear of disturbing the foundations of mor- 
als ; and, on the other hand, he shrinks from saying 
that a lie is never right. He abstains from giving 
any opinion, because, as he says, such cases lie out- 
side of common morality, and, further, because, in 
such cases, a man is surprised and thrown off his bal- 
ance, so that if a moral rule were given it would have 
no effect. This is very much as if a work on navi- 
gation should lay down all the rules for calm weather, 
but none for the time of storm, giving as a reason, 
that in a storm there is so much excitement that no 
one would remember the rules if they were given. 
The fact is, that one of the grand uses of any sort ot 



LOGIC OF ETHICS. 21a 

rule is, that it helps one to preserve his composure 
and self-command in time of excitement and peril. 

The great error of the moral philosophers is in sup- 
posing that this collision is confined to these marked 
cases. They go on the assumption that a man's only 
difficulty is to distinguish between right and wrong, 
and to follow the right forsaking the wrong. On the 
contrary, it is probable that few persons who are 
moderately conscientious have to choose, often, be- 
tween what they recognize as right and what they 
recognize as wrong. The great conflict of the moral 
life is a conflict of duties. What do I owe to myself, 
what to my family, what to the world at large ? Of 
two actions, which will be most likely to do good? 
A myriad questions of this kind are those which the 
person trying to lead the best life has to answer ; and 
those questions of necessity, which have been referred 
to, are only extreme and startling instances of this 
antinomy. 

The Greek dramatists, with their deeper intuition, 
saw that these collisions of duty are the real tragic 
elements of life. In the ancient tragedy you do not 
find vice and virtue pitted against each other. Yon 
find antagonistic duties, each insisting on its observ- 
ance, and bringing retribution for its neglect. Thus 
the claims of the family and of the state are very often 
brought into this tragic antagonism. Thus, the state 
demanded the death of Iphigenia, the daughter of 
Agamemnon, for otherwise, said the oracle, Troy 
could not fall. Agamemnon slays, in sacrifice, his 
daughter, thus violating the tenderest law of the 
family. The family, in the person of Clytemnestra, 



216 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

avenges itself by his death. By this act, however, 
Clytemnestra falls into twofold crime, slaying at once 
her husband and her king. Orestes avenges the death 
of his father and his king by slaying his mother. The 
deed is urged by the gods, yet none the less is he fol- 
lowed by his mother's furies. Such is the spirit of 
Greek tragedy. It is a swing from a crime against 
one law, through its retribution, into a crime against 
another law, in a succession that might be endless. 

We have thus growing out of the moral law the 
gravest possible antagonism, because each side claims 
for itself the dread authority of conscience. Let us 
now glance at one or two of the general rules that 
have been given for settling these controversies. 
The first of these rules which we will notice is that 
which was proposed by Kant, and adopted with 
applause by Cousin, as a final settlement of the whole 
question. It is this, namely, that in case of doubt 
we should ask ourselves what would be the absolute 
duty of all men under the circumstances. We should 
appeal from a single case to all similar cases. This 
rule contains, or suggests, one grand attribute of 
morality. In many cases it would be of service in 
recalling one who is carried away by temptation to 
himself. But as a universal criterion it fails. For, 
first, we have already seen that there are cases in 
which the moralist himself, in all the calmness of his 
quiet thought, cannot determine what would be the 
absolute rule for all persons. And, secondly, this 
appeal to universal propriety is just that which cannot 
be made fairly in times of excitement. Indeed, it is 
by reference to this very principle that wrong invari- 



LOGIC OF ETHICS. 217 



ably justifies itself. Every mood defends itself by 
such a reference to the general duty of all men. The 
man who is revenging an insult insists that every man 
of spirit would and should do what he is doing. The 
mean man will tell you that he is a fool who will not 
look out for himself. Thus, this rule, though it does 
much to clear up our general atmosphere, is power- 
less where it is most needed. What is called the 
golden rule is the nearest possible approximation to a 
perfect criterion of duty. One must do as he would 
be done by. It rests upon the fundamental intuition 
of the moral sense. But even this is more useful to 
cultivate the general spirit of benevolence than to 
determine the nature of any individual act ; for, in 
the first place, its application presupposes a certain 
amount of imagination, by means of which one can 
put himself in the position of another; and, in the 
second place, the rule relaxes its requirements where 
it is most likely to be obeyed. If a selfish man 
would do to others as he would be done by, he would 
be a marvel of generosity ; while, on the other hand, 
if the self-forgetful man did no more for others 
than he would have done for himself, his self-sacri- 
fice would be comparatively slight. At the same 
time this rule does nothing towards settling the rival 
claims, in any case, between integrity and benevo- 
lence. 

All the possibility that remains to be considered is 
that of forming a hierarchy of duties, with the under- 
standing that, in every case of conflict, the lower 
should give way to the higher. This, however 
plausible it may appear, would be very far from 



218 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

settling the difficulty. We have already seen that 
antagonisms arise between duties that stand on the 
same plane, as, for instance, between what we owe' 
to a man's independence, and what we owe to his 
welfare ; or in regard to the division of our assistance 
between different claimants. But even between 
those duties that stand on different planes this 
method would fail. For instance, a small violation 
of one law might be required to prevent a vast 
breach of another. A falsehood is equally false 
whether spoken, acted, hinted, or implied. Even 
the law of truthfulness may be carried to an absurd 
extent. I knew of a daguerrean artist who refused 
to fix the attention of a child by imitating the voice 
of a cat, on the ground that he never deceived 
children. There is, also, an immense difference 
between a generous falsehood, spoken by a sudden 
impulse, and one spoken by premeditation. If there 
is this difficulty in laying down abstract principles 
and rules for the most fixed of human obligations, 
the difficulty is infinitely increased when we descend 
to more complex relations. There are two poles of 
duty. One is the abstract law, the other is the result 
which will flow from any act. An injustice may be 
rectified in such a way that the remedy shall do more 
injury than the wrong. We thus reach the absolute 
underlying antinomy of morals. If we look merely 
at abstractions, we fall into a harsh, mechanical 
formalism. If we look only at results, we fall into 
Jesuitism. The relation of these two, and all the 
minor relations included under them, cannot be 
determined beforehand by any system of laws, how- 



LOGIC OF ETHICS. 219 

ever simple or however complicated. It is the moral 
sense that must make the decision for itself, according 
to the special circumstances of each case. What is 
remarkable is, that in ordinary cases a right-meaning 
moral sense can determine in such a way as to avoid 
in-ave error. If, in those startling cases that have 
been referred to, it is more at fault, it is because they 
occur so rarely that the moral sense, which is used to 
judging familiar cases by common intuitions, has had 
no practical culture that will enable it to meet these 
exceptional complications. It can, therefore, only 
applaud an excess of any one virtue, even though it 
be at the expense of another. 

From what has been said, it will be seen that a per- 
fect deductive moral science is impossible. Moral 
science can show the foundation of virtue and its 
grandeur. It can develop special virtues into their 
branches and fruit. It can even give some clumsy 
approaches towards an establishment of a hierarchy of 
virtues. But life does not follow exclusively any one 
law. Every action is mingled: and moral science, 
in attempting to establish minute regulations for life, 
either degenerates into a barren prolixity of casuistry, 
or else concentrates itself in no less barren common- 
places. 

This difficulty of forming a perfect system of 
morals does not at all conflict with the idea of the 
unity of the moral law. It simply recognizes its 
complex concreteness. Yet the moral law, even in 
itself, is an abstraction, and is only transitional. No 
action is complete so long as it is performed merely 
from a sense of duty. Moral obligation is not the 



220 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

highest principle of action, neither is a merely con- 
scientious man the highest type of manhood. If a 
man provides for his family, is faithful to his conjugal 
relations, is kind to the poor, merely because he 
recognizes all of these as duties and is trying to act 
conscientiously, the development of his character *is 
as yet very imperfect. That religious service which 
is paid as a matter of conscientious duty is not the 
highest worship. All of these relations to man and 
to God should be fulfilled, if performed rightly, 
because one's heart is in them. There is a principle 
of love which is higher than the principle of duty. 
This is recognized on a large scale in the history of 
religion. Judaism was a religion of law. Chris- 
tianity is a religion of love. Judaism sought to 
control the life by a system of external rules. Chris- 
tianity seeks to control the life by an inward prin- 
ciple of love. Every duty is susceptible of being 
performed on either of these planes ; but none is 
complete until it has been translated from law to 
love, until, instead of being the result of a principle 
of duty acting upon one from the outside, it flows out 
of the inmost and essential nature of the person who 
performs the act. Thus, though the moral law is 
necessary for those who have not reached the higher 
plane, as it is necessary also for those who have 
reached this complete development only in the case 
of one or more virtues, or who are liable — as who is 
not ? — to variations in the spiritual life, yet it is by its 
very nature transitional. Its imperfection results 
from this transitional nature. The best acts cannot 
be produced by any system of rule. The way to 



LOGIC OF iESTIIETICS. 221 

produce morality in a man is to infuse the best spirit 
into him, and let him act himself. This free devel- 
opment and manifestation of the best life corresponds 
to the definition that has been given of beauty. 
Beauty is this free manifestation of the highest ideal 
in any sphere or plane of being, natural or spiritual. 
The imperfection of moral science thus introduces us 
into the study of deduction from the third proposi- 
tion of the reason, namely, that of beauty. 

DEDUCTION FROM THE THIRD PROPOSITION OF THE REASON. 
— THE LOGIC OF AESTHETICS. 

The study of aesthetics would naturally divide itself 
into three parts, which might be called scientific, crit- 
ical, and creative. The first would have to do with 
the absolute science of aesthetics, deducing the whole 
from the fundamental principle of beauty. The sec- 
ond would have to do with the criticism of objects 
with reference to their beauty. The third would have 
to do with the production of beautiful objects. If the 
science were perfect, all of these, it is evident, would 
be united under one head. The principles of the sci- 
ence would furnish the rules of criticism and of crea- 
tion. Whether such a result is possible, and the 
principles according to which this result must be 
sought are the questions with which logic, as such, 
has to do. It should be further remarked, that the 
same division would, abstractly considered, be possi- 
ble in the study of ethics. The difference between 
the two studies is that moral actions are transient, 
while aesthetic results are permanent ; and, further, 



222 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

that moral actions are for the most part the result of 
a single volition, and artistic creations of manifold 
and prolonged activities, and therefore the elements 
of criticism and creation form a much more subordi- 
nate part of ethics than of aesthetics; 

The usual method of forming systems of aesthetics 
has been to take some common element of beauty as 
a basis, to show how this occurs in beautiful objects, 
to proceed triumphantly, at first, by the enumeration 
of cases in which this seems predominant, then to 
twist less conformable instances into harmony with 
this principle, — a process that becomes less satisfac- 
tory the longer it is pursued, — and, finally, to deny 
the name of beauty to whatever stubbornly resists 
this process. Perhaps the most ingenious of these 
attempts is that which would reduce beauty to asso- 
ciation. This has afforded opportunity for very ele- 
gant and, to a great extent, plausible treatises, which, 
however, by the very nature of the attempt must be 
found, wanting in the end. The attempt was some- 
what similar to one which mi^ht be made to reduce 
light to reflection. 

Without enumerating more of these attempts to 
reduce beauty to a single principle, the futility and 
partialness of them all will be seen by comparing 
them with the definition given above, namely, that 
beauty is the free manifestation of its real or ideal 
nature by the universe at large, or by any of the ele- 
ments of the universe. 

The words real and ideal are here used as funda- 
mentally identical. A perfect plant of any genus or 
species is the ideal of this genus or species, while at 



LOGIC OF ^ESTHETICS. 223 

the same time it is the real exemplification of it. It 
is its nature uninterfered with by any external force. 
So a pure sound may be called an ideal sound, be- 
cause it gives the true nature, that is the reality, of 
the sound. With this explanation we may use the 
word ideal and idea, and define beauty to be the free 
play and manifestation of the idea. This opens, it 
will be seen, a field as wide and as varied as the uni- 
verse itself. It recognizes beauty in matter, in sound, 
in life, and in spirit. The variations are infinite, yet 
the absolute principle is everywhere the same. It is 
the free play, the unhindered manifestation of any 
of the forces of the world, or of all of them together 
in their grand unity. The ocean and the heavens are 
beautiful, showing the free play of the mechanical 
forces of nature in their stupendous power. The 
springing flower is beautiful, showing the free play 
of life. And thus we may find, through all the 
spheres of nature and art, beauty meeting us at every 
turn. 

As we are not writing a treatise on aesthetics, but 
on the logic of aesthetics, it would be out of place here 
to pursue farther this tempting theme, to define the 
respective spheres of beauty and of sublimity, or to 
illustrate at any length the mutual play, the help, 
whether by harmony or contrast, of the forces of na- 
ture and life among themselves. The tree by the sea- 
side or on the mountain side, by its own twisted and 
stunted shape showing the might of the forces of the 
elements that drive their wild play about it, may fur- 
nish the hint for the explanation of such combinations. 
For the present, we have only to consider the manner 



224 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

in which an aesthetical system may be evolved from 
this principle. 

As has been already stated, the fundamental method 
of such a system, after the first laying down and es- 
tablishing the principle on which it rests, must be his- 
torical. The system will be a priori, in so far as it 
establishes beforehand in general terms what is to be 
expected. It will be deductive, in so far as the na- 
ture of beauty in general, and every department of it 
in particular, will be deduced from the principle which 
lies at the root of this whole or of this department ; 
yet it will be historical, and thus a posteriori, so far 
as its business will be to take things as they are, and 
to unravel in life, in nature, and in art, the course of 
the development of this fundamental idea. In such a 
system all the partial elements of beauty will have 
their place. Association, harmony, unity, adaptation, 
and whatever else has sought to set itself up as the 
head, will here find its true position. Thus, for in- 
stance, adaptation of means to an end will find itself 
recognized as one of the implements or elements of 
beauty. But it will not be the manifestation of means 
to any end or service outside of themselves, as a ma- 
chine is adapted to do a certain work ; it will be rather 
the adaptation of means to an end within themselves, 
as life manifests itself by the structure and activity 
of the living body. The more perfectly this bod}' is 
fitted to manifest its life, the more beautiful wiil it 
be. The life it manifests will be its own. It is its 
own end, and its beauty results from its adaptation 
to develop and manifest itself. Such a system of 
{esthetics, being to a certain extent deductive, will 



LOGIC OF ESTHETICS. 225 

involve something of that antinomy which we have 
found to be inseparable from deductive reasoning. The 
underlying idea will divide itself, and its branches 
will divide themselves afresh. We shall have differing 
styles of art and schools of art. We shall have art and 
nature over against each other. But as in beauty the 
struggle of a thing to be what it should be is ended, 
the beautiful thing already being what it should be, 
so the strife of this antinomy is solved. Each of 
these results being permanent, they all have their 
place. Though men may contend about them, they 
do not contend with each other. The schools of art 
may wrangle, but the science of art adopts all their 
products, so far as they have been true to themselves, 
into its great whole. It includes all extremes, how- 
ever much they may be separated from each other. 
It has a place, however lowly, for the red beads which 
satisfy the aesthetic requirements of the savage, for 
they have the beauty that results from pure color, 
besides contrasting harmoniously and naturally with 
the green leafage in the midst of which the savage 
life is passed. Yet it reaches high enough to include 
the most magnificent results of human art. On the 
other hand, this catholicity does not exclude the re- 
jecting from the system of aesthetics some things 
which may have been considered beautiful at some 
times or places, but which cause in us only disgust. 
It explains, rather, the reason of this disgust, and jus- 
tifies it. The tattooing of the face and form, the com- 
pression of the feet, the extravagance of dress, all of 
these mar and disfigure the pure ideal of life. The 
science of aesthetics must thus recognize a false, as well 
15 



226 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

as a true, taste. This introduces us to the second di- 
vision of aesthetical study, namely, that of criticism. 

Criticism has been said to be one of the lost arts. 
Perhaps it might be better said to be one of the un- 
discovered arts. There is at present no uniformity 
nor any standard of criticism. Each attempt depends 
upon the caprice of the critic. One will say that 
Pope was no poet. Another will say that the poetry 
of the present day is weak and hardly worthy of the 
name, because it is deficient in objective delineation. 
Another will say that the poetry of the present day 
stands higher than any that preceded it, because it 
first develops, on a grand and free scale, the spirit- 
ual elements of our nature. This extravagance of 
variation results, in part, from the very vague notions 
which exist in regard to the science of esthetics. If 
this had been developed among us according to the 
logical principles just laid down, there would be less 
divergence of result, because there would be, to some 
extent, a common standard. Before, however, illus- 
trating the style of criticism which would spring from 
a perfected science of beauty, Ave must admit that, 
at best, a great deal must be left to individual judg- 
ment. The first and the last appeal is to individual 
taste. Thus artistic and literary criticism must al- 
ways be, to a greater or less extent, dogmatic. A 
musical composition may be in precise accordance 
with the laws of music ; yet this does not determine 
whether an air or a theme is beautiful or not. A 
poem may be in a sense faultless, and yet lack the 
Je ne sais quoi, which would make it beautiful. The 
critic, with natural and cultivated taste, must intui 






LOGIC OF AESTHETICS. 227 

tivcly recognize the presence or the absence of beauty. 
This intuition is his starting-point, and upon this he 
must insist, whether with or without reason, whether 
in accordance with, or in opposition to, the opinion 
of others. Thus the starting-point of criticism is 
dogmatic. This, however, is only the starting-point 
Its correctness depends upon correctness of taste. The 
science of criticism teaches how to justify the verdict 
of taste. The critic, not content with saying that an 
object is beautiful, goes on to explain why it is beau- 
tiful. The method and the science of this constitute 
criticism. The method of this may be gathered from 
what has been said above in regard to the nature of 
aesthetics. The critic must not stand on the outside, 
and apply external and foreign measures. He must 
penetrate to the very heart of what he is examining, 
must discover the ideal, or the idea, which is its heart, 
must see how, and how perfectly, it lias developed it- 
self, and thus judge every work by a standard of its 
own. This principle admits of a broad and general, 
as well as of a special, application. Every period of 
the history of art has had its own ideal, and thus also 
its own methods. Each, thus, must be judged by its 
own principle. It would be unjust to apply the same 
rule to the Egyptian Sphinx, and to the Apollo of 
the Belvidere. It would be unjust to decide upon 
the merits of an antique Venus by the same standard 
which we apply to a Madonna of Raphael. The 
Parthenon at Athens and the Cathedral of Cologne 
are both examples of architecture, but each springs 
out of the life of the period in which it was wrought. 
Each has its own ideal after which it was imaged, and 



228 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the measurements of neither. can be applied in judg- 
ment to the other. A whole epoch is represented 
by each. Each is beautiful, but each has its own 
beauty. 

This principle of judgment admits of narrower and 
narrower application, according as we look upon a 
work of art in its relation to one of the grand divis- 
ions of history, or to a shorter and more restricted 
period, or to the individuality of its author, or even 
to the special purpose or end of the work. The 
spirit of a man undergoes a development as regular 
as that of the world itself. The deeper, the grander, 
the spiritual nature, the more regular and complete is 
this development. Especially in the present age 
of subjective literature, though more or less in all 
ages, the development of the inner nature of the 
author, or the creator, will appear in his works. 
These works, wrought out at different periods of this 
history, or rather the products of these changing 
periods, must, of necessity, if they spring out of the 
life of the author, have a common life running through 
them. If these works be poems, they must be in 
some sort one grand poem, just as the artistic results 
of all history together form a complete whole. The 
"In Memoriam " of Tennyson differs from his " Prin- 
cess" as the Gothic cathedral differs from the Grecian 
temple, though the difference is less broad. It not 
only differs from it, but it stands in a certain definite 
relation to it. No one can thus properly criticise the 
works of Tennyson, taken as a whole, unless he has 
penetrated to the inner life that binds the whole to- 

s " ,h °° f ™— 



LOGIC OF ^ESTHETICS. 229 

equally true of the works of every writer who has 
power of life enough to assert itself in this way, and 
the same principle of criticism should be applied to 
them. 

The criticism of any single work in art or litera- 
ture should be conducted in a like sympathetic and 
penetrating method. It is the mere simulation of 
criticism to stand on the outside of a work, and 
point to one part and to another, and say, " This is 
pretty, and that is grand, and this is imperfect." 
We want the critic to go to the heart of the work, to 
discover the central power of its life. He must have 
sympatlry enough with it to know why it was pro- 
duced, how it took hold of the author's mind, what 
he was trying to do, or to what he was unconsciously 
impelled. In other words, he must find out what 
the work was produced for, the idea out of which it 
sprang, the ideal towards which it aspires. Every 
true work of art has such a central idea, and criti- 
cism is imperfect till this idea has been reached and 
exhibited, and we have been made to see how per- 
fectly the means have been used to reach this end. 

The disregard of this principle of criticism has 
been the cause of many of the false judgments that 
have been pronounced. The French applied to 
Shakespeare the rules of the Greek drama, or rather 
the rules of the Greek drama Gallicisecl, and found 
him ridiculous. The English critics applied to the 
earlier poems of Wordsworth and Tennyson the 
rules of the preceding school of literature, and 
found them absurd. It should be remarked, how- 
ever, in extenuation, that it is sometimes almost 



230 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

impossible to apply this true method of criticism to 
the earlier works of a writer of true genius. lie 
has an ideal of his own, at which these earliest works 
hint, though it is not fully exhibited till his later 
works have shown what is the common end of all of 
them. Till then, we have no perfect criterion by 
which to judge them. 

The works of John Ruskin exhibit much of the 
true spirit of criticism. They are dogmatic ; but we 
have seen that dogmatism is a necessary element of 
aesthetic criticism. But they are, in many cases at 
least, sympathetic also. Especially is this the case 
with his unfolding 1 the various elements of natural 
beauty. The sky, the grass, the clouds, and the trees 
seem to have opened their hearts to him. He is in 
sympathy with them, and puts his readers into the 
same sympathetic relation. Thus, having reached 
their heart, we enjoy them as we had never done 
before. 

The third division of aesthetic science has already 
been stated to be that which refers to practical artistic 
creation. This, however, can by its nature have 
little place in a treatise on logic. For its rules are 
either technical on the one side, or, on the other, 
they are as a general thing secret, not to be laid 
down beforehand, and not present to consciousness, 
even at the moment of the creative act. The first of 
these two forms of law, that which we have called 
the technical, has reference to the peculiar character- 
istics of the material with which the special art has 
to do. Thus, for instance, the art of painting in- 
volves, first, a knowledge of the coloring elements, 



LOGIC OF AESTHETICS. 231 

and of the manner of imitating solid objects upon a 
flat surface, or the laws of perspective. Secondly, 
it involves a knowledge of the relation of colors to 
each other, their harmonies and their contrasts, so 
that the picture produced maybe pleasing to the eye, 
even without regard to the objects represented. 
The same is true of the relation of forms. These 
must be understood, so that the mere massing of the 
objects in the picture may have a pleasing effect. 
This involves the knowledge and the study of com- 
position. All of such laws are in a great measure 
technical, and to a great" extent inductive rather than 
deductive. On the other side, we have the act of 
creation, the originating power, all that marks and 
constitutes what we call genius. This is, in its most 
perfect operations, the spontaneous action of the 
mind itself, unconscious of rules, working merely by 
its autocratic power. Some writers, indeed, tell us 
the process b}^ which their works have been designed, 
as Edgar Poe has done, in the case of his "Raven." 
But such statements are to be received with great 
caution. They are often mere after-thoughts, and, 
at best, the essential element of the process has es- 
caped them. If any one doubts this, let him try to 
create a similar work by the same recipe, and he will 
find that the most important part has not been told 
him. Such a grand, original work, formed without 
rule, often in defiance of pre-existing rules, becomes 
itself the source of rules that are derived from it, as 
the laws of the drama were derived from the Greek 
tragedy. Such laws hold good, until some new, 
grand, original work has set them at naught, des- 



232 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

lined itself to become the authority for a new code 
of laws. This act of creation is, although uncon- 
scious of itself, a deduction from the inherent aBsthetic 
sense, which determines the material to be used, and 
the end to be sought. ^Esthetics can only recognize 
this power, but cannot control, or, to any further 
extent, explain it. 

CONCLUSION. 

We have thus examined, as far as has been neces- 
sary for the purposes of this work, the principles of 
deduction from the fundamental propositions of the 
reason, namely, those of truth, goodness, and beauty. 
If it be objected that in what has been said there has 
been much reference to deduction from the proposi- 
tions of the understanding also, and that many of 
the processes described are simply those of induction, 
this is freely admitted. In explanation it may be 
stated, first, that these diverse elements are so 
mingled that one cannot be considered wholly apart 
from the others; and, secondly, that the object of 
this discussion has been in part critical. The object 
was to determine, not merely the method of this 
form of deduction, but the limit of its use, Having 
accomplished this, so far as is possible within our 
present limits, we will now proceed to examine the 
nature and methods of the deduction that is based 
upon the propositions of the understanding, or, in 
other words, upon the results of previous inductions. 
We have no longer vast outlooks into absolute truth, 
but hardly less serviceable surveys from each fresh 



SCIENTIFIC DEDUCTION. 233 

point which the understanding has reached in its 
toilsome ascent. 



B. DEDUCTIONS FROM PROPOSITIONS OF THE UNDER- 
STANDING. 

Each new generalization of human thought be- 
comes, by degrees, the source of numberless deduc- 
tions. These first prove the new generalization, and 
then make it useful in its application to all possible 
relations. In these two operations consists the im- 
portance of this form of deduction. The first is that 
of proof; the second is that of application. For in- 
stance, the stupendous generalization of Newton, by 
which the motions of the heavenly bodies were 
brought into the same category with those of falling 
bodies upon the earth, became the source of deductive 
reasoning applied to the movements of the heavenly 
bodies. The result of this reasoning was compared 
with the actual movement and position of these bodies. 
The coincidence of the two results proved the truth of 
the generalization. After such experiments had set- 
tled beyond a question the truth of the grand principle, 
then it became a centre of light which radiated in all 
directions. It gave the law to the planetary -move- 
ments. It disclosed new planets. It was established 
as the unquestioned ruler of the heavenly spaces. In 
like manner, every discovery is fruitless until it has 
thus been made the origin of other discoveries, and 
has submitted to this manifold application. Thus it 
is, that each new, grand discovery introduces a change 
into all departments of science. It will thus be seen 



234 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

how deductive reasoning fills a very large and neces- 
sary place, even in the sciences which we call induc- 
tive. The broadest generalizations of induction would 
be barren, if it were not for the multitude of new 
truths which deduction draws from them. 

But while deduction is thus a vital element, even 
in the inductive sciences, yet it becomes a hostile ele- 
ment, a clog and a dead weight to science, when it is 
in excess. Deduction binds the generalizations of 
the past, as by innumerable cords, to the familiar 
objects of life. The growth of science consists in 
the pushing forward of its generalizations. No point 
reached is a final point. We have, thus, two antag- 
onistic forces, — induction pushing forward a generali- 
zation, and deduction holding it back by these bonds 
of attachment to known and familiar facts. Thus every 
new generalization breaks up habits of thought, de- 
sti^s the applicability of terms, and disturbs the 
whole system that rested upon the generalization 
which it supplants. Thus any mind in which the de- 
ductive faculty or habit is in excess dreads anything 
that shall make uncertain the premises which have 
been the source of its reasoning. Especially will 
the deductive habit oppose the new generalization 
when it concerns any religious or political belief, any- 
thing on which not merely systems, but institutions, 
depend. It will be noticed that it is the same ele- 
ment which is most hostile to the fresh results of 
induction that clings most tenaciously to the same 
results after they have been long established, being in 
all cases simply a conservative force. From what 
has been said it will be seen that any epoch or peo- 



SCIENTIFIC DEDUCTION. 235 

pie, ill whose thought the deductive element is in ex- 
cess, will be barren, to a great degree, of new results. 
Its foundation premises will be held immovable by 
the complicated structure that is reared upon them. 
While at the same time, as the sweep of deduction 
becomes larger and more unbroken, the same diffi- 
culty that we found in deductive philosophy will 
manifest itself. The results will, namely, become 
more and more abstract and valueless the further they 
are removed from their source. Thus the mediaeval 
age, in which the scholastic system ruled, was to a 
great extent barren of new and valuable discoveries. 

Another evil of an excess of deduction in science 
has been well shown by Mr. Buckle, in his admirable 
though merely incidental discussion, of the subject, to 
be that it lessens its popularity. The common mind 
cannot grasp its results. This is true in propor- 
tion as the premises are removed from the common 
thought or knowledge. Inductive science builds up 
its results in the very sight of all men. Its materi- 
als are such as the mass of people can understand. 
Its facts lie very near to them ; while, on the other 
hand, deduction, taking its start from some inacces- 
sible height, follows a path which to the popular 
apprehension is vague and unreal. 

A true, fruitful, and progressive science depends, 
then, upon a certain relation of induction and deduc- 
tion. Too little deduction would deprive the fairest 
discoveries of their best use and beauty. When, 
however, the deductive element is in excess, it takes 
from science its elastic and progressive force, and at 
the same time deprives it of its legitimate influence 



236 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

for the instruction and elevation of the popular 
mind. 

We have now to consider the different kinds of de- 
duction, varying according to the nature of the prem- 
ise, and make some suggestions in regard to their 
value, their use, and misuse. 

In the first division of this work, we saw that the 
universal may stand to its subordinates in one of 
three general relations, namely, statical, dynamical, 
or organic. As deduction proceeds from the univer- 
sal to its subordinates we shall have to contemplate it 
under these three aspects. In the first of these rela- 
tions, namely, that of the statical universal, all that 
will concern us here is the category of quantity, or 
numerical wholeness. Quality here only concerns us 
as cause, and its relation thus becomes dynamical. 
We have, then, these three forms under which the 
premises of our syllogism may be comprehended, 
namely, of quantity, of causation, and of organic 
wholeness. 

a. — STATIC. 

The proposition, already so often referred to, All 
men are mortal, furnishes a type of the quantitative 
universal. From this, provided it be accurate, re- 
sults of absolute certainty may be drawn. What- 
ever is true of all units of a certain class is true of 
each one of them taken by itself, or of any number 
of them taken together. It is this absolute certainty 
that has given its distinguishing glory to the syllo- 
gism. All that is necessary is, first, that the premises 
be true, with which, however, the deductive process 



STATIC DEDUCTION. 237 

itself is not concerned, it being left to induction to 
establish the truth or the falsehood of them ; and, 
secondly, that words be used in the same sense and 
with corresponding limitation in the different prem- 
ises. When these two points are established, we 
have in the result absolute and indubitable truth. 

It will be obvious that it is only the most general 
propositions that admit of this use, and herein con- 
sists the barrenness that has been ascribed to this form 
of reasoning. As it is a fundamental truth of mechan- 
ics that force and velocity are antagonistic, what is 
gained in force being lost in velocity, and the reverse, 
so it is a fundamental truth of logic, that we have 
found already exemplified in mathematics, that abso- 
lute certainty stands in a direct ratio to abstractness. 
Absolute certainty and concreteness stand in an in- 
verse and antagonistic relation. This quantitative 
deduction is, however, useful, even when it does not 
reach the point of completeness in the first proposi- 
tion, and of certainty in the result. In this case the 
result will be a probability, great or small, in propor- 
tion as the premise does, or does not, approach an 
absolutely universal statement. Thus, if almost all 
warm-blooded creatures are land animals, there would 
be an immense a priori probability that any particu- 
lar warm-blooded creature lived on the land. On 
the other hand, if nearly all sea-creatures are cold- 
blooded, there would be a similar probability in favor 
of any particular sea-creature being cold-blooded. 
Neither of these probabilities, however, would ap- 
proach the certainty with which we could argue from 
the premise that no warm-blooded creature could 



238 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

live wholly under the water, to the result that this 
particular warm-blooded creature could not. As a 
major premise which is almost universal leads to a 
probable result, so one that is merely indefinite leads 
to a possible result, A child says she has seen a cow 
without horns. The other children do not believe it, 
and appeal to you. You say, Some cows have no 
horns ; therefore the one she saw may not have had 
any. Strictly speaking, if we know the exact degree 
of universalness that there is in the first proposition, 
we have the proportion for the probability of the 
result. Thus, if nine-tenths of the units compre- 
hended under the class B belong to the higher class 
A, there is a probability of nine to ten that any one 
individual b of the class B belongs also to the higher 
class A. This general stateineut must content us 
here without tracing out its possible and obvious 
complications. 

The probability and possibility which we have 
found to spring from the greater or less universality 
of the major quantitative premise furnishes a basis of 
action, though not of scientific truth. The truth of 
the statement, Some meu are sharpers ; therefore 
this man may be, puts every one on his guard in 
dealing with a perfect stranger. The almost infini- 
tesimal probability reached by the statement, A very 
few houses are burnt in a year; therefore mine may 
be, leads the cautious householder to obtain an in- 
surance policy. We are, however, approaching al- 
ready the subject of the universal as cause, to which 
we will now fully turn ourselves. 



DYNAMIC DEDUCTION. 239 

b. — DYNAMIC. 

Every object is practically an assemblage of quali- 
ties. These qualities are simply the methods by 
which it acts and reacts on surrounding objects. 
These, which we may loosely call primary qualities, 
producing certain effects upon surrounding bodies, 
give rise to what we may call secondary qualities. 
Thus, sugar is sweet, and thereby pleasant. Gun- 
powder is explosive, and thereby dangerous. Thus, 
from these which we have called the primary quali- 
ties branch out others, and through these others, in 
an almost endless progression. Deduction, in its rela- 
tion to the dynamical aspect of bodies, consists in 
tracing out this chain of cause and effect. From the 
primary or secondary qualities of any object or ac- 
tion we prove its utility or its efficiency, its fitness 
or unfitness, for any special relation. These primary 
and other qualities occur in groups. Thus the process 
of deduction is not a simple one. If a thing had but 
one quality, and thus produced only a single effect, 
the work would be an easy one. But as it is, it must 
always happen that, for any particular purpose or re- 
lation, these chains of cause and effect interfere with 
each other. One quality will tend to fit the object for 
this end ; the other will tend to unfit it. Thus we 
have open to us opposing lines of deductive reason- 
ing. We are confronted by that antinomy which we 
have already found so liable to meet us in deductive 
reasoning. In fact, in deduction from the proposi- 
tions of the understanding only those which involve 
purely quantitative relations are free from this. Though 



240 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

this peculiarity of deductive reasoning has been often 
overlooked, it is the great hindrance to its absolute 
reliability. It is this element in reasoning that puts 
it in the power of religious, political, and other char- 
latans to deceive and mislead the people. It is this, 
also, which is the occasion of the very common one- 
sidedness of thought. Take, for instance, the matter 
of a protective tariff. Such a tariff has two aspcets : 
one towards the manufacturing interests of a country, 
the other towards its commercial interests. Thus we 
have an opportunity for two utterly antagonistic ar- 
guments. One adopts this form : The development 
of manufactures is essential to the interests of a na- 
tion ; a protective tariff helps the manufacturing in- 
terest ; therefore a protective tariff contributes to the 
national prosperity. The other argument is in this 
wise : Commerce is essential to the prosperity of a 
country ; a protective tariff obstructs commerce ; con- 
sequently a protective tariff is injurious to the pros- 
perity of a country. I have put these argumenis 
loosely together, as I have done in the case of other 
illustrations, not affecting the precise syllogistic accu- 
racy. 

This full form can easily be constructed by any 
.reader who cares for verbal strictness. From what 
has been said, it will be seen how each of these ar- 
guments is in itself satisfactory, and could easily 
pass itself off for the entire truth. A persorflisten- 
ing, for the first time, to either would feel it con- 
vincing, and those in the constant habit of hearing or 
usin£ either would feel it unanswerable. Each is in 
fact not answered, but rebutted, by the other. This 



DYNAMIC DEDUCTION. 241 

antagonism is not peculiar to this case, but makes its 
(appearance in almost every other similar one. In 
any projected undertaking, one person will urge the 
advantages of it; another its difficulties. Perhaps it 
is a case of proposed war. One person, or party, 
will paint the injured honor of the nation, or its re- 
stricted interests. The other person, or party, will 
paint the horrors of war, its suffering, and its cost. 
Such illustrations might be accumulated endlessly. 
In fact, this partialncss forms the staple of the great 
mass of argument. Arguments do not so often con- 
fute each other, as, starting from different premises, 
undertake to overthrow each other by their momen- 
tum. Rhetoric, or at least the rhetoric of oratory 
ind persuasion, consists in the effort to make the 
quality selected as the basis of the argument so at- 
tractive that it will be stronger than any antagonistic 
one. It seeks, in fact, to emphasize this quality so 
that every other shall be forgotten. In the case of 
the tariff, the rhetoric of the one party will paint the 
advantage which will come to the country from the 
prosperity of the manufacturing interest, and the evils 
that would spring from interference with this. The 
other party will spend the same rhetoric in painting 
the glory of the maritime interest. In case the quali- 
ties lie on different planes, the effort is to make the 
listener rise or sink to the same plane as that on 
which the speaker stands. It may be that one side 
objects to the moral quality of an action. The other 
side urges its practical advantage. The two cannot 
meet. The one seeks to lift the hearer up to the high 
plane of moral sentiment ; the other to drag him down 
16 



242 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to the lower one of self-interest. This antinomy is 
in some degree recognized. The proverb says that 
every story has two sides. But yet it is far from 
being generally perceived that it springs from the 
very nature of deductive reasoning. The recogni- 
tion of this fact would do very much to make men 
independent of one-sided reasoners, and tit them to 
Approach impartially the questions that rack the pop- 
ular thought. 

What has been said would seem to leave this form of 
reasoning and its results in hopeless confusion. Yet it 
is precisely on this dynamic deduction that the great 
practical interests of life depend, and every act is the 
fruit of one or another such train of reasoning. Per- 
sons are so constituted that one quality of an object 
takes hold of them more strongly than another ; or 
they may have been educated into a certain relation 
with one form of qualities, rather than another, so 
that arguments drawn from these especially move 
them. Men are more or less one-sided. Each rep 
resents, more or less, a partial idea. It may seem 
then, as if such reasoning were useless ; as if there 
were no absolute criterion of truth. But, first, it h 
by the means of this partialness that the whole nature 
of an object, or institution, or truth, becomes broug 
into play. One man bases his reasoning and his actions 
upon one interest, another upon another, and thus each 
has justice done it. Secondly, so far as these diverse 
qualities are upon different planes, as, for instance, 
one on the moral and the other upon the selfish, the 
properly constituted and educated man is adapted to 
these, so that each class makes its due emphasis, and 






DYNAMIC DEDUCTION, 243 

has its due weight with him. And, thirdly, so far 
as these different qualities are on the same plane, 
deduction cannot, indeed, solve the difference between 
them. But she has a powerful ally, namely, induc- 
tion, which she can call to her aid. Induction, which 
is but another name for experience, corrects the 
errors, balances the partialness, and solves the antag- 
onism of deduction. Deduction shows the effects 
that qualities tend to produce. Induction, taking 
the hint, shows what effect they actually do produce. 
From the nature of a protective tariff, for instance, 
we can paint beforehand certain effects, so far as 
commerce and manufactures are concerned. Experi- 
ence alone can show just what tariff, if any, is best 
suited for the common interests of any given people, at 
any particular period of their history. The more ab- 
stract the reasoning, the less does deduction need this 
correction. The more complex the relations with which 
it has to do, the more does it need it. This last prin- 
ciple needs emphasis ; for it is often in the most compli- 
cated matters that men are most inclined to trust to 
mere a priori reasoning. Thus it would be impossi- 
ble to number the theories of political economy that 
have been based on deduction from some one princi- 
ple, and taken as real, and worthy of complete trust, 
because they Avere in harmony with, and result from, 
this principle. Thus the wise Plato, believing the 
state to be the one central and all-important element 
of society, deduced from this starting-point his ideal 
republic, — a scheme which excludes what is best and 
most essential to human life, breaks up the family, 
and runs into all extravagance. In these days, it is 



244 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

more common to deduce our theories of social life 
from the principle of the absolute individuality and 
independence of all men. Relief of the poor, com- 
mon schools, and public improvement, are, in these 
theories, excluded from the sphere of governmental 
jurisdiction. The first point named, the relief of the 
poor, illustrates very well the nature of such reason- 
ing. Poverty, it is said, is the natural punishment 
of improvidence. To alleviate it is to encourage 
improvidence, consequently to increase the evil it 
is designed to lessen. Those who reason thus rep- 
resent some of the best thought of the time ; yet, 
singularly enough, they fall into the same extrava- 
gance that the fanatics did, who objected to inocula- 
tion for the small-pox, because it interfered with the 
pains and penalties ordained by God. Every natural 
evil is a penalty for some broken law. If one is 
careless on the water, drowning is the extreme pen- 
alty. To save a drowning man is to encourage care- 
lessness. Ill-health is the penalty for breaking the 
laws of health. The doctors are rendering nature's 
laws of none effect. Plato already turned them out 
of his republic, because they kept along in life those 
who by good right ought to die off. The reasoning 
referred to, which is so common in regard to the 
poor, is simply another instance of the same sort. 
Doubtless injudicious help does more harm, than 
good. Experience shows us how best we may alle- 
viate the sufferings of povert} r , while at the same 
time we diminish, instead of increasing, its cause. 
Thus all social theories, whether those which look to 
the government to control everything, to lind work 



DYNAMIC DEDUCTION. 245 

fjr the worker and food for the eater, or those which 
exclude from the sphere of government all such inter- 
ference and help, all systems based on the selfishness 
of man, or upon his desire of gain, or any other single 
principle, need the correction of experience. Politi- 
cal economy cannot, indeed, be a purely inductive 
science, for the perfect society has had, thus far, no 
existence. It cannot be a purely deductive science, 
for, as we have seen, deduction by itself runs into 
extravagance. It is probably impossible to form a 
complete system of political economy, till society 
itself is perfect. But deduction and induction, by 
their mutual help, can continually advance the science, 
and cause it to approximate nearer and nearer to per- 
fection. This illustration has been dwelt upon to 
show how, as the subject of reasoning becomes com- 
plex, pure deduction becomes less and less able to 
sustain itself by its own force, and how it needs the 
correction of experience, the organization of which 
in induction we are presently to consider. 

It may, however, be objected to what has here 
been said in regard to the illustration used, that it is 
possible to form by deduction, if not a perfect system 
of political economy, yet one practically sufficient. 
For instance, although selfishness is not the only 
human trait, and a system based upon it is incom- 
plete, yet, if we look upon government as an institu- 
tion for mutual protection, we need no other recog- 
nized principle. Machiavelli long ago reduced this 
to its simplest expression, when he said that the 
prince should rather trust to the fear, than to the 
love, of his people ; for the fear was in his own 



246 TIIE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

power, while the love was not. But even in the 
punishment of criminals, which is the most common 
example of this relation of government to the safety 
of society, there is more than one thing to be con- 
sidered. The rights of the criminal are to be re- 
spected, as well as those of the public. That is, he 
is to be punished just as much as the public safety 
requires, and no more. Experience, alone, can bal- 
ance these two interests. Thus, in all similar cases, 
deduction is, to a very great extent, the moving prin- 
ciple, but it needs, at every step, the correction of 
induction. 

We have considered static and dynamic deduction. 
It now remains only to glance at deduction from a 
whole to its parts, or what may be called organic 
deduction. 

c. — ORGANIC. 

Purely organic deduction can hardly be said to 
have any real existence, for an organism consists of 
two elements, one static, the other dynamic, and 
deduction has to do with a single principle alone. 
Yet none the less do we often meet with reasoning 
of this kind, which appears plausible, and may be 
either misleading or confusing. The fallacy which 
takes this form is that of reasoning from the nature 
of an organic whole to that of its parts. We have 
already come into contact with this fallacy, in discus- 
sing deduction from the propositions of the reason in 
general. All the fallacies there considered might 
be regarded as examples of false organic deduction, 






HYPOTHESIS. 247 

which may be further specially illustrated by suppos- 
ing some one to reason from the fact that a picture is 
beautiful, that, therefore, each part of it must be 
beautiful. 

It is in regard to the final cause, that organic 
deduction has its most important place, though here 
it cannot stand alone. One must unite with deduc- 
tion from the final cause, as to what is required for 
its accomplishment, induction to determine what ob- 
jects and means would effect these requirements. 
And such reasoning from the final cause is in danger 
of proving fallacious, since different means may pro- 
duce the same end. We meet a fine example of this 
form of deduction in its real power, in the way in 
which a general, or a chess-player, knowing the end 
which his adversary has in view, deduces from that 
the means he will take to reach it, and thus is able 
to break up the organization of his plans, before they 
have be^'un to execute themselves. 

From what has been said, however, it will be seen 
that organic deduction, in its general uncertainty, and 
in the fact that it unites the elements of induction 
and deduction, partakes already of the nature of 
hypothesis, which forms the natural transition be- 
tween these two forms of reasoning. 

C. — DEDUCTION FROM MIXED PROPOSITIONS. 
HYPOTHESIS. 

It has been stated that hypothesis lies between de- 
duction and induction, connected with both, yet be- 



248 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

longing exclusively to neither. An hypothesis is the 
result of a superficial glance at the facts to bo ex- 
plained, and at the general principles by which it 
seems possible to explain them. It is thus an 
imperfect, hasty, and superficial induction, and in 
like manner a hasty and superficial deduction. One 
can hardly make an hypothesis, which shall be any- 
thing more than a random guess, without regarding 
both the nature of the facts, and also the general 
laws already established. The words hypothesis and 
theory have often a similar, though rarely, if ever, a 
quite identical meaning. An hypothesis is a more or 
less probable conjecture in regard to the cause of 
any phenomenon. A theory refers to the method or 
law of the working of any cause known or imagined. 
Thus the luminiferous ether that is supposed to fill 
the interstellar spaces is, until its existence is proved, 
an hypothesis. The method of its undulations is a 
theory. The word theory further differs from the 
word hypothesis, in that it is used with less reference 
to its absolute and certain truth. We speak, for 
instance, of "Wells' theory of dew," or more gener- 
ally, of the " theory of dew," although its truth has 
been established beyond a doubt. Although the 
words are thus distinct in their meaning, they may 
often be used interchangeably, as an hypothesis al- 
ways involves a theoiy, and a theory often involves 
an hypothesis. The use of the word hypothesis is 
sometimes a. little doubtful. It is difficult, for in- 
stance, to determine the exact point of time when an 
hypothesis becomes a fact. And further, in speaking 
of what was once believed to be a reality, but now 



HYPOTHESIS. 249 

known to have been a mere hypothesis, or of what is 
now known to be a reality, but which was once held 
merely as an hypothesis, it is doubtful which term to 
use. Something may be subjectively an hypothesis, 
and objectively a fact, or the reverse. In what 1 
have to say, I shall use the word very generally, and 
without any attempt at absolute precision, which is 
for our present purpose unnecessary. 

We have, first, to speak of the use and place of 
hypothesis, and, next, to give some general sugges- 
tions in regard to the formation of them, in the differ- 
ent departments into which tlioy divide themselves. 

Hypothesis has been at times considered the bane 
of reasoning. We now know it to be a necessary 
adjunct of reasoning. Whether the hypothesis be 
true or false, it helps to crystallize the formless mass 
of materials which awaits generalization. It gives 
an impetus to observation. It gives direction and point 
to examination. It helps to remember, as well as 
to see, facts. Isaac Taylor very well compares hy- 
potheses to drawers labelled, "Ready for the recep- 
tion of facts." Take, for instance, the two theories 
formerly held and defended in regard to electricity, 
namely, that of the one fluid, and that of the two 
fluids ; how much have these contributed to the 
observation and generalization of phenomena. They 
stood over against each other, like the leaders in the 
child's game of thread-the-needle, making each ap- 
prehended fact decide for one or the other, take its 
place behind the selected one, and add its strength 
to the struggle that was to determine its superiority. 
And though both theories now rest side by side, alike 



250 . THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

rejected, yet none the less did they contribute to the 
progress of the science. Thus do even false theories 
help on true knowledge. The alchemists were pur- 
suing a phantom, yet none the 'ess did they create 
chemistry. Columbus was mistaken in some of his 
theories, yet none the less did he discover America. 
Thus we might go through the history of science, and 
show how it has been helped at every L-tep by hypoth- 
eses that have been without basis, though not with- 
out fruit. 

If false hypotheses have done so much for science, 
how shall we estimate the value of true hypotheses? 
Many have a notion that in any induction, the rea- 
soner, step by step, approaches the grand result at 
which he at last arrives. This is rarely, if ever, the 
case. The reasoner throws himself forward upon 
some hypothesis from which he may look back upon 
his facts, and marshal them, This is his -ou crib 
outside of the world, from which he moves the 
world. This hypothesis is rarely an entirely fresh 
creation. It is in general a simple or modified form 
of some already recognized principle, unless it be, 
indeed, a mere x, or unknown term, supposed as the 
supporter of certain phenomena. Since hypothesis 
holds this prominent place in reasoning, it is natural 
and important to have, so far as possible, rules for 
guidance in their formation, yet as an hypothesis is, 
by its very nature, in part, an original and fresh sug- 
gestion, no rules can very precisely determine the 
method of its formation, or fix restrictions in the 
search for it. We shall, however, proceed to bring 
together certain of these rules, as they have been 



HYPOTHESIS. 251 

suggested by distinguished thinkers, illustrate and 
criticise them, and add tc them whatever may seem 
necessary to present a complete view of this topic, 
so far as fits in with the plan and limits of this work. 
To do this it will be necessary to divide possible hy- 
potheses into certain distiuct classes. An hypothesis 
is simply a possible universal from which we can 
reason as if it were real. We have already seen that 
the universal may stand to its subordinate in either 
of three relations, namely, static, dynamic, and or- 
ganic. We have thus already made the division that 
we need. It is very easy to see the importance of 
this division. The process of arriving at some pos- 
sible ground of classification common to many dis- 
tinct objects is very different from that required to 
devise some possible cause for any number of results. 

a. — STATIC. 

As in deduction we found the static universal to be 
quantitative, that is, to be the expression of a gen- 
eralization which includes all the units of a certain 
class, as any number might include them, so the search 
for an hypothesis on which to base such a generaliza- 
tion will be the attempt to find a quality which may 
serve as the basis of such a quantitative universal, 
that is, some quality which may be made a common 
term for all the units under consideration. 

Herbert Spencer makes a very important sugges- 
tion in regard to hypotheses, which is, however, appli- 
cable mainly, if not wholly, to that class of hypothe- 
ses we are now considering. The suggestion is this, 



252 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



that to reach such an hypothesis you take terms 
widely distinct as possible, standing at different ex- 
tremities of the series, and what is common to these 
is very likely to bo common to all intermediate ones. 
He proceeds on this principle to develop a very in- 
genious and valuable definition of life, taking as his 
extremes the lowest type of vegetation and the high- 
est of human thought. It will readily be seen how 
important this principle is in such a process. If the 
attention were confined merely to vegetable life, 
growth would probably be the first hypothesis sug- 
gested, while so soon as we reach the higher types 
we find that growth is merely a subordinate element, 
which, so soon as an animal reaches its maturity, 
ceases to manifest itself. Looking merely at the 
higher types, we might perhaps hit upon locomotion 
as the common term, which, however, fails us when 
we consider the lower. If, however, we take both 
extremes, what is common to these will, most proba- 
bly, be common to all the rest. By proceeding in 
this manner, Spencer reaches this as a definition of 
life, namely, that it is the continuous adjustment of 
internal to external relations. 

It is obvious that an hypothesis thus reached can 
be only very general and abstract. It must often 
leave out what is most characteristic in the class of 
bodies, facts, and operations considered. For in- 
stance, if I wished to distinguish the plays of Shake- 
speare from other similar works, or, in other words, 
if I wished to characterize the genius of Shakespeare, 
I should not seek what is common between the " Ham- 
let," on the one side, and the "Troilus and Cressida," 



as 



HYPOTHESIS. 253 

on the other, for, by so doing, I should exclude what 
I was seeking. For a formal, abstract, quantitative 
definition, which shall include all members of the 
class considered, the suggestion of Spencer is a very 
valuable one. But by putting the lowest examples 
on an equality with the highest, it reduces all to a 
level with the lowest ; and this, it may be remarked 
in passing, is a danger to which the science of the 
time is exposed. 

b. — DYNAMIC. 

The second kind of hypothesis in our division is 
the dynamic. A dynamic hypothesis is one which is 
put forward to furnish a conjectural cause to certain 
effects. Here, also, have been devised certain rules 
or principles to guide and control the search. 

And, first, Newton, the great master of inductive 
thought, lays down as one canon that the cause as- 
signed shall be a true cause, vera causa. This can- 
not mean that it should be the true cause ; for that 
conflicts with the very nature of hypothesis, this being 
a step in the discovery of the true cause. Neither 
can it mean that it should be some already recognized 
and established principle ; for this would be to limit 
our knowledge to the causes already known, and thus 
restrict the grand march of science. The rule may 
be taken in this last sense, however, so far as to imply 
that, if possible, the hypothesis should be that of 
some already recognized force. Such was Newton's 
hypothesis of the cause of the planetary movements. 
Gravitation was a known force, and the reducing the 
planetary movements to this was to explain them by 



254 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

a known cause. Yet, even in this sense, the .rule is 
not universally binding. There are times when an 
entirely new force has to be devised to explain some 
new class of effects. Thus, the suggestion of the 
electric fluid to explain electrical phenomena was the 
introducing into the scientific world an entirely new 
and unheard-of agent. To find any absolute value to 
this rule of Newton, we must take a step further. 
The scholastic habit was to assiffn, as the cause of an 
effect, a certain quiddity, which was merely another 
name for the same thing. Thus we might say that 
a man is virtuous through the possession of virtue. 
An object is heavy, gravis, through its gravity. 
Now this is to assign no cause in any true seuse of 
the term. The rule of Newton forbids an hypothesis 
to be a mere play upon words. Gravity is such a 
merely verbal explanation applied to weight ; it be- 
come a true cause when applied to the motions of the 
heavenly bodies. 

Comte, who, with all the imperfections of his re- 
sults, must be regarded as one of the great organizers 
of modern science, suggests a rule for the formation 
of hypotheses, namely, that every hypothesis must 
be one that admits of decisive proof or negation. 
That is to say, an hypothesis is only valuable as a 
step in the discovery of truth, and must therefore be 
one that admits of final settlement. This rule over- 
looks the advantage already spoken of, namely, that 
an hypothesis, true or false, helps to organize crude 
material. It has also the further difficulty, that one 
cannot say at first what does admit of proof and what 
does not. The electric fluid seemed an hypothesis 






HYPOTHESIS. 255 

that must be always a doubtful one, yet now Ave know 
positively that there is no such substance. The 
negative proof is complete ; while, so far as positive 
proof is concerned, we can hardly conceive it possible 
that the grand hypothesis of the interstellar ether 
should ever admit of any proof more strong than its 
complete adaptation to explain all the phenomena 
concerned. It was, probably, in reference to such 
hypotheses as these that the rule was first given. 
Science has, however, gained so much from such 
hypotheses that the impropriety of the rule has been 
demonstrated. It is, indeed, impossible to confine 
science within the narrow limits which Comte thought 
fitting. He would restrict it to the mere observation 
of the sequence and correlation of phenomena. The 
human mind, however, seeks constantly to place a 
cause behind every appearance, and the gain which 
science has made thereby shows that, though this 
tendency is to be kept within due bounds, it is not 
to be utterly forbidden. 

The third and last rule which I shall cite, for the 
formation of hypotheses in regard to the causes of 
phenomena, is stated by Whewell in his very valua- 
ble and most interesting work on the history and the 
philosophy of the inductive sciences. Whewell takes 
the position that we have certain previously formed, 
or, as he would maintain, innate ideas, relating to 
time, space, force, etc. His theory of hypothesis is 
that from these ideas is taken one which is conjectu- 
ral ly applied to the facts under consideration. If it 
fits in with them, furnishing an explanation of the 
known, and foretelling the unknown, then it is a true 



256 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



hypothesis. The principle he insists upon is, that 
the idea taken for this purpose should be of the kind 
which is befitting the circumstances of the case. As 
an illustration of the disregard of this principle, we 
have the fact that the ancients, age after age, failed 
in explaining the course and relation of the heavenly 
bodies, because they sought to do this by applying to 
them ideas of space instead of those of force. That 
is, they sought to explain them by relations of space 
instead of by those of force. This rule is, certainly, 
a very good one. The trouble is that the question is 
very often just this : From what kind of relations 
shall the hypothesis be taken? The rule is thus 
better fitted to criticise mistakes after the truth has 
been discovered, than to prevent these mistakes in 
the first instance. Thus, in the present stage of 
science, it is easy to say that for the explanation of 
the digestive process the hypothetical cause should 
have been suggested by chemistry, rather than by 
any fancied theory of a vital principle. But, certain 
ly, to the first reasoners on the subject this vita 
principle was much more naturally suggested thai 
any chemical agencies. So, to the ancients, the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies naturally suggested 
ideas of space rather than those of force. The appli- 
cation of force to the explanation, not only of these, 
but finally to that of all other phenomena, is a grand 
era in scientific investigation. But no such rule as 
has been referred to could have wrought this advance. 
The great mistiness of ancient thought in regard to 
scientific matters, and, indeed, the mistiness of much 
popular thought at all times in the same direction, 



: 



HYPOTHESIS. 257 

results from the confounding of static, dynamic, and 
organic relations ; either a static relation or a final 
cause being often taken instead of a dynamic or effi- 
cient cause. Our modern science has practically 
cleared up this confusion, but logical and speculative 
thought has been slow to perceive the importance of 
this accomplishment, or to appropriate its results. 
And it may be repeated, that while these results may 
serve to classify and explain the mistakes of ancient 
science, they cannot be used to condemn it. It is to 
the efforts of the ancient students of nature, as well 
as to those of the modern, that we arc indebted for 
this clearing up of the confusion that mingled and 
obscured these distinct departments. 

The three rules just considered have been dwelt 
upon, more as helps in illustrating the nature of hy- 
pothesis, than for any absolute value of their own. 
From what has been said it is obvious that science is 
helped by a reasonable hypothesis of any sort, so long 
as it is held loosely merely as an hypothesis, till its 
truth has been ultimately settled. Yet as the primary 
object of an hypothesis is to reach the true cause of 
an effect, it is almost needless to say that an hypothe- 
sis should be something more than a mere guess. 
Something should point to this particular hypothesis 
rather than to another. The question here meets 
us afresh, What is the guide in this search? The 
answer is, Analogy. The reasoner first asks himself, 
What class of phenomena do those under consideration 
most resemble, and what sort of cause is therefore 
likely to be the true one? Thus, glancing over 
known facts and causes, he gains from this principle 
17 



258 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



3k he 
:y re- 



of analogy some hint as to the direction in which 
is to look for the required agent. The analogy 
quired for making an hypothesis is, of course, much 
weaker and more general than that required to prove 
an hypothesis. The whole subject of analogy will he 
more properly treated later. It is enough that we 
now feel our need of this method of reasoning. 

C. — ORGANIC. — FINAL CAUSE. 

Looking forward, then, for a fuller treatment of 
analogy, which is the foundation not merely of hy- 
pothesis, but of induction itself, we will leave the con- 
sideration of dynamic hypotheses, or those which 
relate to causes, and will proceed at once to the 
consideration of those which we have classed under 
the head of organic. These hypotheses relate, not to 
the active forces which cause certain phenomena, but 
to the general relations and result of them. They 
may be best summed up under the general head of 
hypotheses in regard to the final cause. 

There has been of late much question whether the 
final cause should ever suggest an hypothesis or 
theory, or should in any way enter into a scientific 
discussion. There have been periods when this form 
of hypothesis ran into all extravagance ; it is there- 
fore hardly to be wondered at that the reaction should 
seek to exclude it altogether. It is important to 
inquire, then, how far the idea of final cause is to 
enter into our reasoning. 

There can be no hesitation in admitting hypotheses 
based upon the consideration of final causes wherever 



FINAL CAUSES. 259 

the works of man arc concerned. Man, we know, is 
forward looking as well as backward looking. He 
acts for an object. We thus are not merely allowed, 
but forced, to recognize this whenever we find traces 
of his presence and activity. We find, for instance, 
pieces of flint imbedded in the earth. We at first 
know not whether they are the work of nature or of 
man. If they are produced by nature, we have only 
to consider the force by which they were made to 
assume their present shape. So soon as they are 
recognized as the work of man, we take into considera- 
tion, also, the end for which they were made. By 
such reasoning we may discover, or by such hypothe- 
ses guess, to some extent even the preceding con- 
ditions of the outward world. Thus, Inveresk,* a 
few miles below Edinburgh, is the site of an ancient 
Roman port, It is at present situated upon what is 
merely a shoaling estuary, utterly unfitted to be used 
as a harbor. The fact that it was selected for a har- 
bor shows that its former surroundings must have 
been different from its present. We see that the land 
must actually have risen since the town was founded ; 
that when it was chosen to be a port, the sea, at high 
water, must have washed the foot of the heights on 
which the town stands. Thus every track of human 
life gives occasion to guesses, more or less plausible, 
to hypotheses more or less certain in regard to their 
final cause, and whatever may have been connected 
with this. It is by such hypotheses, mainly, that we 
build up the history of the past. 

* See Lyell's " Antiquity of Man." 



260 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

If we turn from the history of man to the lower 
nature, we find that there even the most radical 
theories of science leave a place for this mode of 
research. These assume that all organic forms 
reached their present structure through the influence 
of surrounding circumstances. It is the peculiarity 
of life that it sustains itself through all such varia- 
tions, changing itself in order to adapt itself to new 
surroundings. Individuals, and even genera, may 
perish when these changes are too sudden or too great, 
but up to a certain point individuals and genera 
change to meet outward changes, and through all 
these transitions organic life endures. When, then, 
we find in any animal organization any element that 
fits it for certain surroundings, we knew that these 
surroundings must have existed ; and when we find 
in such an organization any element, the use of which 
we do not understand, we have a right to make 
hypotheses in regard to its utility in the general 
system. It may be urged, indeed, that such reason- 
ing relates to efficient causes rather than to final 
causes. If, for instance, the medium in which an 
animal exists has called out any peculiarities in its 
organization, this medium is the cause, rather than 
the object, of the change. But it must be noticed 
that, allowing the theory of which we have spoken 
full sweep, the causes referred to can act only indi- 
rectly. These changes take place in order that th< 
life may be preserved in its new surrounding. Thus, 
it is the final cause that we are first to consider 
afterward we will discover, if possible, the efficient 
cause which produced the change. It is by means oi 



FINAL CAUSES. 261 

such reasoning that the greatest steps in physiological 
science have been made. Thus, the valves in the 
arteries suggested the theory of the circulation of 
the blood, before it had been discovered by actu.il 
observation. These peculiarities in the structure of 
the vessels, it was thought, could not be without 
object; and the hypothesis based upon this reasoning 
was found to be correct. This result was very differ- 
ent from that which would be reached by reasoning 
as to the course of a stream now dry, from the posi- 
tion of the stones in the deserted channel and the 
direction of the bed of its old tributaries. In this 
case we reason to the direction in which the water 
flowed, by going backward from the effect to its 
active cause. We know of no object for this flowing, 
— we only see the trace of it. In regard to the cir- 
culation of the blood, we cannot say but that its 
movements may somehow have contributed to the 
formation of these valves. Any hypothesis looking 
in that direction is certainly within the limits of 
science, and may lead to interesting results. But at 
present there is, and at the time when the discovery 
was made there was, no basis for such an hypothesis. 
The only mode of reasoning in the case was then, as 
it would be now, that in regard to the final cause. 
This brilliant result shows what a distinguished place 
this sort of reasoning has in the development of 
science. 

If from the consideration of individual organiza- 
tions we pass to that of species or genera in relation 
to each other, we find still a field for the considera- 
tion of final causes. Much may be gained, indeed, 



262 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

by explaining the higher organization by the lower, 
the function, for instance, of different parts of tho 
human brain by the gradual development of the brain 
in the lower orders of animal life ; but much is to 
be gained, also, by explaining the lower by the 
higher. 

The organic world is seen more and more to be a 
vast and complete system. The lower looks forward 
to the higher, as well as the higher backward to the 
lower. The influence of such a relation may be seen 
in the light which is thrown by embryology upon 
classification. Of this, Prof. Agassiz has given a 
fine example, to which a general reference has already 
been made. There are three orders of insects, name- 
ly, that of the centipedes, that of the spiders, and 
that of the winged insects. What is the relation of 
pre-eminence in the rank of these orders ? The but- 
terfly, as well as every other complete winged insect, 
passes through three stages of existence, correspond- 
ing to the three orders just referred to. It first 
creeps the ground with the structure of a worm. It 
then, in its chrysalis state, assumes the structure of 
the spider, and, finally, appears in its proper form as 
a winged insect. It is correct to reason from the one 
series to the other. The separate orders referred to 
must take rank in the order of their development in 
the single life of the butterfly. Such reasoning is 
valid, and hypotheses based upon this form of final 
cause are helpful. 

If we now look beyond the boundary of single and 
related organisms, the question meets us whether we 
should sLUl be justified in assuming, even hypotheti- 



FINAL CAUSES. 263 

calty, a final cause as the basis of <*eal or conjectural 
reasoning. The final cause we found to be originally, 
and most obviously, connected with matters under 
the direction of human reason, although we have 
found a place for it in organic forms without looking 
at their origin. In contemplating the world at large 
thb question is, Do we find in it the traces of a reason 
and a wisdom so similar to the best human wisdom 
that we may assume the influence of final causes as 
we can in the operations of men? We have not now 
to decide whether we are justified in affirming the 
presence and the influence of such a controlling wis- 
dom ; but whether there is enough resemblance to 
this to justify us in hypothetically assuming such 
wisdom. The answer is obvious, that there is. 
Whether the hypothesis be true or not, it is yet near 
enough to the truth to assist us in our investigations 
and our generalizations. The theory of the electric 
fluid, though not perfectly answering the conditions 
of the case, yet did this so nearly that the conclusions 
reached by it remain valid; though that has fallen. 
So all that we say now, and all that it belongs to our 
present object to say, is that the hypothesis of a di- 
recting wisdom, similar to a perfect human wisdom 
enlarged to omniscience, is near enough the truth to 
be a basis of reasoning and a guide in investigation. 

In forming minor hypotheses on this foundation, 
we must be very careful that we make them broad 
enough and not too confidently. A form of these hy- 
potheses very common is that which assumes all 
things to have been created for the pleasure or the 
profit of man. This assumption is apt to check, 



264 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

rather than to advance, science. Man is the organic 
head of the lower world. In him we see, in their 
proper grace and relation, the bodily members, which 
in the lower grade of animals arc apt to he confused 
and distorted, or at least imperfect. In this sense, 
man may he held to be the final cause of the creation, 
just as the perfect statue is the final cause of the pre- 
vious imperfect forms of it. Man stands at the head 
of the lower forms of life as their final cause, just as 
the individual man stands at the head of the embryonic 
and immature forms that preceded his maturity. But 
when we look abroad over creation, and attempt to 
explain, even hypothetical ly, the existence of every- 
thing, from its ability to contribute to the welfare of 
the human race, we fall into fruitless fancies, and nar- 
row the range of thought and investigation. Es- 
pecially is this the case when we extend this reasoning 
from objects in the world to the world itself. It was 
this overweening consciousness of the supremacy of 
man that stood in the way of the acceptance of the 
Copernican system of astronomy, as it also stood in 
the way of the belief that other worlds beside ours 
are inhabited. It does not concern us here whether 
this latter belief be true or false. We are interested 
in it only so far as it furnishes an example of the ap- 
plication of this perverted and extravagant notion of 
our own race as being the head of the physical uni- 
verse. 

After having thus established the propriety of reason- 
ing upon the hypothesis of final causes, and having, 
also, explained the limits beyond which such hypothe- 
ses become a hindrance instead of a help, it remains 



FINAL CAUSES. 265 

only to suggest the principle that shall guide to the 
formation of.sueh hypotheses. This principle is, that 
while to obtain mere statical or qnantitive hypotheses, 
that iy, mere generalizations, that shall include all 
related phenomena, we have to compare and examine 
specimens most widely sundered, attending often 
most carefully to those lowest in the scale ; to form 
hypotheses of final causation, or of organic com- 
pleteness, we have to look not at the lowest but at the 
most perfect examples of a given class. In discus- 
sing the subject of static hypothesis, Ave had occasion 
to observe the result which the former rule, exclu- 
sively followed, tends to produce. We saw that by 
giving the lowest object of a class the same impor- 
tance that we give to the highest, our science tends to 
become barren and abstract, and the whole perspec- 
tive of our thought to be destroyed. This is referred 
to here to illustrate the entirely different principle we 
must follow so far as the fundamental and organic re- 
lations are concerned. Here we must lay our great 
stress upon the higher forms and the most perfect 
examples. By these we can first understand the 
lower, because it is to these that the lower are in 
some way or other tending. We need, indeed, all 
kinds of hypothesis, — the static, the dynamic, and 
the organic. As without the last our science tends 
to become a barren and dead level ; so without the 
two former it would become fantastic and visionary. 
Of all these, the organic hypothesis needs to be 
managed with the most care and delicacy ; yet none 
the less is it essential to the right understanding of 
the world. If the world is an organic whole, nothing 



26(3 T&& SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

can be unde/f/'ood when looked at in its isolation. If 
it is an o/gknic whole, then each object in it has its 
peculiar ^nce and significance, yet none the less do the 
'elatior a and principles common to all come out more 
dainty in the most highly developed, and, in this 
jen^p, most complete forms of its common life. You 
v aj taarn something of man by studying his embry- 
yj'.c structure and development ; but you can obtain 
more light on the nature of the embryo from your 
knowledge of the full-grown man, than you can in 
regard to the nature of man from the study of 
the embryo. A flower-seed is like a riddle, of 
which the plant is the solution. Whatever our 
theories of creation or development may be, for- 
mally, that is, as parts of one common system, the 
lower forms of creation bear the same relation to 
the human type that the embryo bears to the full- 
grown man. The studies in embryology, by which 
it appears that every human being passes through 
forms more or less analogous to the different types of 
life upon the earth, may not prove any outward law 
of development, — may not prove that the human 
race actually emerged from these lower types ; but 
they do prove that the formal relation of all is the 
same as if it did. You can obtain additional knowl- 
edge in regard to the human hand and arm by 
studying the bones of a fish ; but you can get more 
knowledge of the bones of the fish by comparing 
them with the corresponding structure of man. The 
discovery of the nervous filament in the lowest forms 
of animal life in which it exists throws much light on 
the hnmau brain and the complicated system to which 



FINAL CAUSES. 2G7 

it belongs, but not so much as it receives from the 
study of these. Comte observed that our whole idea 
of the world depends upon this, whether we look 
upon it from the stand-point of man or from that of 
the lower creation ; and from what has been said it 
will appear that while statically and dynamically man 
is only a unit among myriad other units, or is 
merely a congeries of a myriad units, organically, 
man is the head and completion of all ; organically, he 
is the solution of the world's riddle. While thus to 
form a static hypothesis, that is, a guide in a mere 
quantitative generalization, we seek for what is com- 
mon in the most widely sundered extremes of the 
department under survey, to form an organic hypoth- 
esis, that is, one that shall guide us in the study of 
the fundamental and organic relations of things, we 
must use the higher forms as the key and explanation 
of the lower. 

In addition to the rule just suggested for the for- 
mation of organic hypotheses, there is another special 
guide that must not be overlooked, the same that we 
found most reliable in the formation of merely dy- 
namic hypotheses, namely, analogy. Having now 
discussed, so far as our limits admit and our purpose 
requires, the nature and the formation of hypotheses, 
we will at once enter upon the field to which they form 
the transition. 

SECOND FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 
ANALOGY AND INDUCTION. 

It will be remembered that the syllogism has always 
three terms, which, with reference to their difference 



268 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



of generalization and subordination, may be styled 
universal, particular, and individual. The different 
forms of syllogism depend upon the mutual relation 
of these three terms. In the first form of syllogism 
we have the universal connected with the individual 
by means of the particular. Thus the structure of 
the syllogism by which John's mortality is so often 
proved may be illustrated : - - 



Bd, 



Universal. 
Mortal. 



Particular 
Man. 



Individual. 
John. 



We know that John is mortal, because he is man, 
and all men are mortal. This may be more simply 
symbolized, as before, by the initial letters U P I. 

In the second form of syllogism the individual 
term becomes the connecting link. This form may 
be symbolized thus, U I P. With reference to the 
example before referred to, instead of reasoning 
from the mortality of all men down to that of John, 
we reason from the mortality of John up to the com- 
mon mortality of the race. This form of reasoning, 
it will be seen at a glance, is, as thus stated, much 
less reliable than the other. In that, w 7 hen the prem- 
ises are true, the result is certain. In this the 
premises may be true, and the result false. Because 
this rose has thorns, it does not follow that all roses 
have thorns, any more than because this rose is red, 
it follows that all roses are red. It would seem at 
first sight, then, that this form of the syllogism might 
be thrown away as useless. This would be, however, 
to throw away the great engine of modern discovery. 



SECOND FOEM OF SYLLOGUSM. 2fi9 

For though a single syllogism of this form is, in 
general, powerless, yet when they are multiplied they 
become a source of undoubted knowledge. As, 
however, in this multiplication the extreme terms re- 
main the same, it will be simply necessary to multi- 
ply the mean term. Thus, observation of many 
individuals gives a final and accurate result. Repre- 
senting,, then, these different individuals by different 
small letters, we may symbolize this process as fol- 
lows : — 

u. I. P. 

a 
b 
c 
d 



In this enumeration of observed individuals, all of 
which possess the same universal quality united with 
the same particular attribute, we at last reach a point 
where we conclude, without doubt, that the two 
always coexist in the same individual. We have not 
direct or indirect knowledge of the mortality of nil 
men. The world is full of individuals, of whose 
mortality we have no observed proof; yet we have 
known and read of so many individual instances of 
men that were mortal, that we do not hesitate to 
ascribe the same quality to all. This method of 
reasoning from individuals is called analogy, or indue* 
tion, according as it is from, one or more. 



270 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The study of analogy and induction is the study of 
the methods and safeguards of this reasoning. 

Though induction is thus, apparently, the opposite 
of deduction, yet there is a point where the one 
passes into the other. Herbert Spencer suggests, 
very ingeniously, that the difference is only in the 
number of individuals that have been observed ; and 
this sus^estion is true so far as deduction from the 
propositions of the understanding is concerned. Up 
to a certain number we reason by induction. When 
the induction is complete we reason from that result 
to other examples by deduction. This may be illus- 
trated as follows : — 



u. 



The above represents the case in which all known 
examples are used to connect the extreme term, and 
prove that all P is U ; yet it will happen in general 
that somewhere between c and x this certainty is al- 
ready reached. We then argue to the remaining 
examples, instead of from them. If any individual, 
I, has a certain particular quality, P, we take it for 
granted that it has also the more general quality, U ; 
or, in other words, if it belong to the sub-class P, 
that it belongs to the class U, This transfer may be 



SECOND FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 



271 



thus illustrated. It will be noticed, iu the following 
scheme, that at a certain stage P and I change 
places, showing that the particular, instead of the 
individual, is thenceforth the connecting term : — 



u. 



p. 



U. P. I. 



Putting a concrete meaning to these symbols, we 
may write thus : — 



u. 


i. 


P. 


rtal. 


John. 


Man 




Caesar. 






Pompey. 





U. 


P. 


I. 


Mortal. 


Man. 


James. 
Peter. 



This shows how at first we reason from individuals, 



272 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

afterward to them, and thus how the second form of 
the syllogism passes into the first. 

Changing now our method of presentation for the 
moment, we see that in induction the individual is not 
only the connecting term, but, also, practically the 
starting point. In deduction, the particular is practi- 
cally the starting-point, as well as theoretically the 
connecting link. By the one form we reason from 
individuals, by the other to them. If >ve symbolize, 
uow, the actual course of reasoning, as before we 
symbolized its theoretical relation, we have the fol- 
lowing : — 



u. 

p. 



\ 



We start with individuals, and reason up to uui- 
versals ; then from universals we reason down to indi- 
viduals. On putting, as before, concrete realities iu 
the place of mere symbols Ave have : — 

U. — Mortal. 
P. — Man. P. — Man. 

I. — Cozsar, Pompey, etc. 1. — John, James, Myself, etc. 

The question now meets us, whether it is possi- 
ble to reason directly from individual to individual 
without this intervening ascent and descent; in 
other words, whether it is possible to reason without 
the aid of the syllogism. Certainly, we do often 



SECOND FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 273 

reason from one individual case to another without 
any consciousness of intermediate steps. A child 
hums himself by a lire. He makes no conscious 
induction in regard to fires in general, but the next 
fire that he sees, he is afraid of. Thus do we continu- 
ally judge a case, or an object, simply by referring to 
some single experience of the past, without extending 
our thought beyond the two individual objects or 
cases. This being so, it has been urged that the syl- 
logism, though useful for reasoning, is not indispen- 
sable to it. This objection holds good in regard to 
the syllogism as it is commonly defined, namely, as a 
series of propositions, standing in certain external 
relations ; but it cannot be applied to the syllogism as 
it is regarded in this work. "The burnt child dreads 
the lire." Why? Because he burnt himself at a fire, 
and this is also a lire. He does not dread the lire 
because it is this or that lire, but simply because it is 
five. That is, from his single experience he has con- 
nected the idea of burning with the idea of fire 
wherever he meets it ; and from this general connec- 
tion in his mind between lire and burning, he dreads 
every individual lire that he meets. The relations are 
precisely the same as those illustrated above. These 
relations come to consciousness as soon as we under- 
take to defend or to explain the result reached by any 
rapid and unconscious process like that just described. 
Then we bring prominently into view the universal 
term, and its relation to the particular and the indi- 
vidual, b} r the processes of induction and deduction. 

It has been said above, that induction is based 
upon the observation of many individuals. Before 
18 



274 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

eonsdering this, we have to notice the application oi 
the second form of syllogism to a result reached 
by observation of a single case. It is certain that 
reliable results may thus be reached which have only 
a single observed instance as their basis. This 
reasoning from a single individual observation is 
called reasoning from analogy. 

A. ANALOGY. 

Analogy differs from induction only in this, that 
it is based upon a single instance, while induction re- 
quires many facts for its foundation. If a child, in 
the case just referred to, dreads every fire it sees, 
simply because it has been burnt by one, this ex- 
tended result is a case of analogical reasoning. It 
will be seen at a glance that this form of reasoning is 
exposed to immense abuse. Because two objects are 
alike in one particular, or in many particulars, it 
does not follow, except for some definite reason, that 
they are alike in any other, or in all particulars. The 
question then meets us, How shall we find any relia- 
ble basis or safeguard for analogical reasoning? We 
can answer this question satisfactorily, only by 
taking into account, as before, the difference between 
static and dynamic relations. By the reasoning from 
static analogy is meant the assurance that one quality 
or fact will always be found in connection with a cer- 
tain group of qualities or facts, although we can give 
no reason for this association, except that it has been 
found to exist once. This is the common and popu- 
lar form of analogical reasoning. We do not know 






ANALOGY. 275 

why certain phenomena me associated together; we 
do not know which are the essential and which are the 
accidental elements of the group ; wc only know that we 
have seen them associated, and for this reason, when 
we see several of them united, wc expect to find 
the rest united with them. In such a case as this, 
according to the numerical proportion of the mem- 
bers of the group known to be present to the rest, is 
our confidence that the others are present also. The 
case of the child once burnt, who dreads the next fire 
he sees, affords a striking example of this reasoning. 
This fire is in all perceptible respects like the other. 
Its color, form, and motion are the same. There is no 
connection between these peculiarities and the power 
to burn, yet from the presence of these former, he 
believes that the latter is also present. This is a 
strong case, yet even this analogy can deceive, as we 
see in the case of phosphorescent effects, in which 
there is the appearance of fire without the power to 
burn. So in other cases there may be some change, 
some operation, not known to us, by which the i'orce 
which bound the group together has been removed. 

To make static analogical reasoning absolutely reli- 
able, the terms of it must be precluded by the form 
of the reasoning from the possibility- of any change. 
We rarely find this fully accomplished except in 
mathematics. 

It will, perhaps, occasion surprise if we speak of 
mathematical reasoning as being a perfect example of 
reasoning from analogy. It has been already shown 
that mathematical reasoning differs from ordinary 
logical reasoning in this, that its proportions are 



276 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

identical, that is to say, both terms are absolutely 
equal and alike. It has been also shown that the 
great certainty of mathematics results from its ab- 
stractness, which excludes all possibility that any 
foreign element shall change the observed relations. 
A mathematician determines the relation of certain 
parts of a circle to one another and to the circle it- 
self. He does not need to observe more than one ex- 
ample. From this he is as certain of the universality 
of his result as if he had observed hundreds of simi- 
lar cases. The reason of this is, that by the terms of 
his supposition the statement of his general principle 
excludes all possible disturbing circumstances. His 
reasoning is based upon the most abstract definition 
of a circle. This definition is, by the very terms of 
its statement, applicable to all circles. Any form to 
which this definition cannot be applied is not a circle. 
Any other relation, then, that he sees to be neces- 
sarilj r connected with these in any one case, he knows 
must be connected with them in all cases ; because, 
by the very supposition, the fundamental relations are 
unchanged. This example shows the absolute per- 
fection and certainty of which analogy is capable. 
Induction itself is only the attempt to replace, by the 
rude and gross force of accumulation of instances, by 
the mere power of number, the flue and certain con- 
nection which, when once discovered, makes a single 
observation more conclusive than a thousand would be 
without it. It is, however, rare that static analogy 
can reach this absolute certainty. The cases where 
»t can are of necessity abstract. In the world of 
physical agents and of concrete and complicated re- 



ANALOGS. 277 

lations, we need a closer analysis than static analogy 
can furnish us. We need to discover on which mem- 
ber of any group of phenomena the presence of any 
other member depends. When we have discovered 
this, we know that in every case where the former is 
present, the latter will be present also. This form of 
analogy may be called dynamic. In analogical 
reasoning, a single direct dynamic relation of this 
kind will outweigh a multitude of mere resemblance.-;, 
however close. Let us look at a familiar example. 
A gardener may, by some accident, apply salt freely 
to his asparagus bed. The plants grow larger and 
thriftier. It is an obvious result from analogy that 
the same application will profit, in the same degree, 
other plants. He makes the experiment, and kills 
them. All the general resemblance between the 
asparagus and other plants profits nothing, so long as 
there is this fundamental difference, that the aspara- 
gus is naturally a sea-side plant, and thus accustomed 
to, and dependent upon, salt ; while the others are not. 
So soon as another plant is found which has this 
peculiarity, no matter how widely it differs in other 
respects from the asparagus, he may be sure that the 
same treatment will benefit it. We see, thus, the 
difference between popular and scientific reasoning 
and analogy. The one is struck by outward resem- 
blance, and certainly in this way stumbles upon many 
valuable discoveries. The other seeks the inner rela- 
tion, the dependence, under one form or another, 
of cause and effect, and thus moves, not by guess, 
but by the fair exercise of trustworthy reasou. 

The discussion in regard to the population of the 



278 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

planets and other worlds furnishes a fine example of 
the nature, the difficulties, and the safeguards of 
analogical reasoning. We only know one world to 
l>e inhabited. Our reasoning in regard to the others 
must be based on what we know of this one ; conse- 
quently, the argument must remain one of pure 
analogy. The first point is to reckon up the similari- 
ties which the other worlds have to this, and the dissim- 
ilarities which offset these resemblances. This planet 
is round ; it has a moon ; it moves about the sun ; it is 
inhabited. The other planets, as a general thing, 
resemble it in the three first points ; therefore it is 
urged they must also in the last. On the other hand, 
the other worlds differ from this in density, in tem- 
perature, and in light. Here we have three points of 
similarity, and three of difference. Numerically, they 
balance each other. Let us apply the principle just 
laid down, and see which set of qualities has most 
direct connection with the fact of inhabitants. The 
three first, it must be confessed, have very little. 
The motion round the sun and the relation to it must 
have very little weight, so far, for instance, as 
Uranus is concerned. The sun at that distant planet 
is very little like our sun. The moon has very little 
to do with life ; and, finally, it is as easy to imagine 
inhabitants upon a flat surface as on a sphere. In 
deed, the natural thought of man finds it much easier 
to do this, and long rebelled against the notion of a 
spherical inhabited world. On the other hand, the 
differences found to exist between this planet and the 
others are in matters that -directly concern life. Vi- 
tality is independent of the moon, but it does depend 



ANALOGY. 279 

upon the density of any medium or foundation, and, 
also, upon light and temperature. Thus fir, then, anal- 
ogy has urged little in favor of the population of other 
planets. The argument, however, bceomes more plau- 
sible, as it brings into the diseussion the thought of a 
final cause. The world was created for man. The 
other worlds must have been created for some end. 
They are of very little service to us. We cannot 
conceive of any worthy end except as connected with 
intellectual life; consequently, since we cannot con- 
ceive of their having been created in vain, they must 
have inhabitants more or less similar to ours. On the 
other hand, it is urged that this argument assumes 
more than we are at liberty to assert in regard to the 
divine plan of creation. If we, as before, apply our 
determining principle to decide between these oppos- 
ing arguments, we perceive that the nature of the 
divine plan in regard to man is the important matter 
to be settled before making it the basis of analogical 
reasoning. If man be created for a special end ; if 
he have no relation with the lower forms of life ; if 
his whole history is special ; if the existence of man 
be designed to furnish the theatre and the occasion for 
the grand and tragic drama of the universe, which, by 
its very nature, forbids repetition elsewhere, then the 
existence of man upon the earth for such a purpose 
as this furnishes no argument of analogy drawn from 
final causes to prove the population of other worlds. 
On the other hand, if there is not present such a 
special element and object in his history ; if he stand 
in simply natural relations to the world about him and 
to the creative power above him, then the fact that 



280 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

this world is crowned by intelligent life suggests a 
probability that some, at least, of the other worlds 
have a similar completion. If you pick some un- 
known fruit from a tree, and find some excrescence 
upon the outside, you will at once conjecture that 
this is an accident which you cannot, with any cer- 
tainty, expect to find repeated in other specimens. 
Whatever, on the other hand, you find to be the 
nature and appearance of the seed or stone of the 
fruit, you expect to find repeated in every specimen 
you examine. In the argument of analogy suggested 
by the final cause, the question is, whether man is a 
special addition to the world for a special purpose, or 
whether he is connected with its being, as world? 
This will depend, as has been said, upon our views 
of the object for which God created man, and must 
be always limited by our ignorance of the actual and 
possible purposes of creation. 

We have thus seen that the analogy of final causa- 
tion gives a much stronger argument for the popula- 
tion of the other worlds, than that from the mere 
juxtaposition of qualities, yet this argument is af- 
fected by our notion of what is the final cause of 
man's existence, and is weakened by our ignorance 
of the complete plan of the universe. Let us now 
apply to the same question the analogy of causation. 
We find, looking over the whole history of the 
world, that there has always been a production of 
creatures of higher and higher grade so fast as there 
was opportunity for them to obtain the means of life. 
The water was filled with sea-creatures. As the 
water subsided, the slimy mud was filled with am- 



ANALOGY. 281 

phibious beings, s.nall or monstrous. Thus at every 
step the world has brought forth creatures higher and 
higher, until, when man had a place ready for him, 
when the conditions of his existence were fulfilled, 
he took his place, and closed the vast procession. 
What was the power or the method of this produc- 
tion of life, how the divine agency co-operated with, 
or made use of, these lower elements, we are not forced 
at present to consider. It is enough for our purpose 
that in the outward chain of visible causation life al- 
ways sprang from the conditions of life. We have 
here an analogy which may be applied to other worlds, 
which varies with their variations, which adapts itself 
to their conditions, which has to do with obvious re- 
lations, and is bound to a definite course of progress 
and of causation. Since the divine power, the crea- 
tive energy, works with such uniformity of method 
upon this world, we may reason, with very strong 
assurance of the truth of cur argument, that so far 
as the condition of other worlds adapts itself to the 
production of life, so far are they inhabited. The 
sun, being a mass of flame, cannot be the home of any 
form of life. If the moon is an arid and volcanic 
waste, we do not expect to find inhabitants there. 
If the more distant planets are of thin and watery 
substance, we should expect to find upon them only 
aquatic creatures. If Mars resembles very much our 
earth in its substance and condition, we should expect 
to find upon it inhabitants more or less similar to 
the population of our world. And as fast as the 
watery globes assume consistency, a separate struc- 
ture of continent and sea, we should expect to find 



282 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

them occupied by a higher grade of existence. And 
as th > physical history of our world is to some extent 
necessarily that of other worlds similarly situated, 
we may expect to find a similar progress in the na- 
ture of their population. 

This illustration has been dwelt upon at some 
length, both on account of its fitness to exhibit the 
nature of analogical reasoning, and also because, in 
the works entitled respectively, "Plurality of Worlds," 
and "More Worlds than One," the reader will find" 
the most elaborate examples of sustained analogical 
reasoning that I am familiar with, at least in the 
realm of physical knowledge. The first-named of 
these especially, though not free from fault of method 
and of result, is yet a very powerful and instructive 
example. Both present a grand compendium of true 
and false analogies, which the student of this branch of 
reasoning may study critically and with great benefit. 

A passage from the work of Taylor, entitled " Th< 
Physical Theory of Another Life," furnishes a strik- 
ing example of the application of analogy based upon 
final causation to the question we have been consider- 
ing. 

If we entered, he says in effect, some vast palace 
we should expect to find the variety in its apartments 
and their uses commensurate with the size of the 
building ; so we may to some extent reason from the 
vastness of the universe to the variety in the appear- 
ance and occupation of the worlds. This analogy 
from vastness to dignity and variety often fails, how 
ever. "It is absurd," says the same writer, "to admit 
the supposition, that the sun is the mere lamp and 



ANALOGY. 283 

hearth of the plauetary system, or only the swivel of 
its revolutions. This were much the same thing, as 
if, viewing from a mountain side the distant metropo- 
lis of an empire, the gilded domes of which arc reful- 
gent in the beams of noon, one were to imagine that 
the great world is not in that metropolis, but in the 
dozen of shepherds' huts among which one stands." 
We now know, however, that the sun is the mere 
swivel or hearth, and that the vulgar rustics, who 
were once ridiculed for believing it a mere mass of 
red-hot iron or stone, were nearer right than those 
who, looking at its vastness and its glory, believed it 
a world far more beautiful and spiritual than ours. 
This example shows that the analogy of causation is 
more reliable in particular cases than that of final 
causation. 

It will have been seen, from the discussion just 
passed through, that while analogy may in some 
cases reach the most absolute certainty, and in others 
a very strong presumption of truth, yet the range of 
its power to establish perfect knowledge is limited. 
It must not, however, be supposed that this limit 
comprehends the entire range of its usefulness as an 
instrument of thought. Where it cannot be used to 
establish truth, it may often be used to answer objec- 
tions against anything held as true. The objector 
brings up certain difficulties. The objection is rebut- 
ted by showing that the same difficulties exist in mat- 
ters the truth of which is accepted by the objector. 
In this use of analogy we find the same conditions 
which have been just insisted upon. If the objector 
can show that the difficulties bear a different relation 



284 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to the truth which he holds, from that which they 
bear to the belief which he opposes, then his objec- 
tion remains with its first force. It will thus be seen 
that this, which may be called the apologetic form of 
analogy, is, strictly speaking, only an argumentum 
ad hominem. It concerns only the person addressed, 
or those who hold the same opinion that he holds. 
And, further, it will be seen that the result of this 
apologetic or defensive reasoning would work in two 
directions, and it would depend upon circumstances 
whether, provided it had any effect at all, it would 
make the objector accede to the truth defended, or 
give up the opinion which he previously held, finding 
that there were the same difficulties about it as about 
that which he rejected. 

The classic example of this defensive analogy is, of 
course, the great work of Bishop Butler, by which he 
defends doctrines which he believes to be those of 
revelation, by showing that the objections brought 
against them would apply to any form of natural 
religion. From what has been said it will be obvious 
that this work is simply an argumentum ad hominem. 
It adds nothing to the actual credibility of revelation, 
but is of the nature of a retort, throwing back the 
objections against it into the face of the objector. Its 
tendency is in two opposite directions. It is like an 
entering wedge that presses both ways, but produces 
its visible effect on the side where there is least resist- 
ance. If the theist's faith in his theism forms a larger 
element of his character than his rejection of revealed 
truth, this unbelief will be removed by such an argu- 
ment, supposing it to be unanswerable. If, on the 



ANALOGY. 285 

other hand, his unbelief in revealed truth be more in 
accordance with his general habits of thought and 
feeling than his belief in theism, then it will be this 
belief which will be the sufferer. In the merely apolo- 
getic or defensive form of analogical reasoning we have 
thus an antinomy similar to that found so generally in 
deductive reasoning. The work of Bishop Butler not 
only furnishes a fine example of this twofold and an- 
tagonistic tendency of the form of reasoning to which 
it belongs ; it also forms a fine study in regard to the 
other relations of the same form of argument. It has 
been said above that the force of such an argument 
from analogy may be destroyed, provided it can be 
shown that the relation between the difficulties and 
the thing believed are different in the two cases con- 
sidered. Thus, if in the subject treated so very ably 
by Bishop Butler the difficulties cited by him have a 
different relation to natural religion from that in 
which they stand to revealed religion, then the anal- 
ogy proves nothing. For instance, suppose it to be 
affirmed that revealed religion should be the solu- 
tion of the difficulties which meet us in our present 
and actual life, and which make faith in any religion 
often so difficult, then it is no argument in favor of 
any system of truth, claimed to be the product of a 
direct revelation from God, to urge that this system 
contains the same difficulties which had harassed our 
simple, natural faith, only more intense and insur- 
mountable. When these difficulties press upon us, 
we point, for their answer, "behind the veil." But 
if, when the veil is lifted, we find the same difficul- 
ties vaster and more formidable than before, what 



28(5 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

resource is left? This example may show how too 
great resemblance may sometimes defeat the very 
argument which the analogy was designed to sup- 
port. 

In cases where the facts and the belief which are 
made the basis of analogical reasoning are fixed and 
universally recognized, one element of the twofold 
action of the argument has, of course, no effective and 
perceptible influence. Of this nature is the analogy, 
so often drawn, between the passage of the caterpillar 
through the chrysalis to the butterfly state. Here 
certainly the facts in the one case are unquestionable. 
No use that can possibly be made of them, no em- 
phasis of the strangeness of them, of the previous 
incredibility of them, can destroy the belief in them. 
If it be urged that the analogy proves nothing, the 
cases and the results are so different, this must be 
freely admitted. All that such an analogy can do is 
to lessen the objection drawn from the difficulty of 
belief in the possibility of such great transformations 
in the course of an individual history. The analogy 
proves nothing. It merely lessens the force of oppo- 
sition. 

This example introduces us into a new division, to 
which it in part belongs, namely, to analogies which 
simply aid the imagination. This use of analogy has 
been already referred to in treating of the Greek phi- 
losophy, where it was said that the arguments of 
Plato, for instance, were more commonly designed to 
be helps to the imagination than proofs to the under- 
standing. In this department belong the analogies 
and comparisons of poetry. The consideration of 



ANALOGY. 287 

these is the province rather of rhetoric than of logic. 
Yet rhetoric springs out of logic ; and as before, in 
speaking of deduction, occasion was taken to show 
the basis of persuasive rhetoric, so here we may mark, 
in passing, the foundation of figurative rhetoric. Fig- 
urative rhetoric consists in the use of analogy, either 
for the purpose of illustrating a truth, that is, of giving 
reality and concreteness to it ; or for the purpose of 
giving to an object or an event some quality foreign 
to itself, by which it may be elevated or debased. 
These two uses are entirely distinct. We have an 
example of the first in the illustration of the strength 
that there is in brotherly union by means of a bundle 
of sticks, each of which by itself could be easily 
broken, but which together could resist a very 
great force. This use of analogy, though properly 
belonging to rhetoric, belongs also 'to logic, and fluc- 
tuates between the two. The second use spoken of 
is illogical and purely rhetorical. It foists, by the 
means of analogy, into an object or event some quality 
or idea which does not belong to it. Thus, when a 
ship in a tempest is said to reel to and fro like a 
drunken man, we add in our imagination, almost un- 
consciously, to the ship the semi-consciousness and 
the bewilderment of an intoxicated man. In other 
words, we acid the human element to the ship. This, 
it is true, is not asserted of it. The pojnt of the 
analogy is simply the crooked and unequal course. 
But because this course is connected in the one case 
with these human qualities, we receive almost insen- 
sibly the impression that it is connected with them in 
the other also. By this means it is possible to give 



288 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to an object or event any aspect that we will, from 
the most sublime to the most ludicrous. Of the use 
and abuse of this power it is the province of rhetoric 
to treat. We merely observe, in passing, the illogical 
nature of it. We must not omit, however, to state 
that there is a basis of truth in all such analogical 
rhetoric. This basis of truth is the fact that there is 
a certain element of identity common to all phenom- 
ena. All are the manifestations of one force. All 
such figurative expressions as have been referred to 
imply this more or less clearly. In oriental poetry 
the profusion of images with which every page is 
thronged has mainly this object, namely, to bring 
to light the inner identity of all things, which is so 
prominent a part of the oriental philosophy and 
theology. 

We have thus far considered the uses of analogy in 
transferring certain qualities, with which we are 
acquainted, to certain objects, with whose other quali- 
ties we are already acquainted. There is no new 
element introduced. So far as the qualities are con- 
cerned, we do not go beyond our experience. There 
is only a fresh combination of old material. The 
question now meets us, whether it is possible by 
means of analogy to transcend, not merely our expe- 
rience of the combination of qualities, but that of the 
qualities themselves. In other words, can we obtain 
by analogy any idea of an object with none of the 
qualities of which we have been previously familiar? 
Suppose, for example, that you have never seen a 
pear, and I wish to give you some conception of what 
it is. I have no means of doing this but by analogy. 



ANALOGY. 289 

The object that occurs to me as being most similar to 
a pear is an apple. I tell you that a pear, in color, 
in its internal and external structure, resembles an 
apple, only its shape and its flavor are different. It 
might seem, at first glance, that you. would have no 
conception in your mind except of a flavorless apple 
of a peculiar shape. I bid you take your experience 
of an apple, excepting in regard to its shape and its 
flavor. The different shape I can describe, but I 
have given 3011 no conception of any other flavor to 
take its place ; consequently, as has been said, your 
only clear conception would be that of an incomplete 
apple. But the fact is, that, though your notion of 
a pear would be still very imperfect, yet you would 
have made a positive advance towards it. The mind 
has the power to hold fast the two or three points 
which analogy may give it, leaving the other elements 
of the unknown object not so much absent as indefi- 
nite. The familiar definite qualities, and the indefi- 
nite ones foreign to our experience, together make a 
new object, partially defined, yet real to our thoughts. 
Thus analogy has the power of enabling us actually 
to transcend our experience, and obtain a partial con- 
ception of objects, many of the qualities of which are 
unknown to us. 

In fact, a large portion of our knowledge is of this 
imperfect character. By far the greatest number of 
our conceptions are of this nature, which we may call 
symbolical. Analogy furnishes two or three clear 
points ; the rest of the conception is left vague and in- 
definite ; yet vague and indefinite as it is, it does mod- 
ify the elements furnished by analogy, and bring us 
19 



290 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

towards the true conception of the unfamiliar object. 
Take, for instance, our conception of the solar system. 
A diagram is shown to us representing the orbits of the 
planets, or an orrery representing their movements. 
To these are added certain large measurements of the 
spaces represented, of which we can form no image 
in our mind. These are the elements out of which 
our idea of the solar system consists. Now, it might 
be plausibly urged that we have no idea of the solar 
system. For take our thought of a single planet, our 
image of it is the little ball we have seen in the 
orrery. This we are to enlarge indefinitely, beyond " 
the farthest reach of our imagination. We have thus 
an inconceivably large ball. But a ball is a body 
bounded in all directions by circles. What makes it 
a ball, therefore, is the nature of its limiting surface. 
An indefinite, that is an unlimited, body cannot be a 
ball. In other words, a body, of the limits of which 
we have no conception, we cannot conceive of as a 
ball. For the very conception of a ball involves that 
of its limits. The same may be said of the orbits of 
the planets. If we cannot take in the conception .of 
the planet, still less can we that of its orbit. In fact, 
we can hardly make a difference between the two. 
We cannot make our thought of the orbit larger than 
the thought by which we strive to comprehend the 
planet. It might thus be plausibly urged, that the 
analogy furnished by the orrery has not at all helped 
our conception ; yet, in spite of such plausible argu- 
ments, it is true that it has helped us, and we have 
approached towards a true conception of the solar 
system. The san e reasoning may be applied to our 



ANALOGY. 291 

thought of the earth. A globe gives us by analogy 
its shape. We see certain stretches of its surface, 
covered with forest, city, or plain. Yet probably no 
one can connect these two in one image. When we 
think of the world as a globe we reduce its size. 
When we enlarge our thought to take in the multi- 
plied objects that cover its vast surface, we lose the 
globular shape. Take, for instance, a single part of 
the earth's surf ice, namely, the ocean. We stand on 
the shore and say that we see the ocean. Yet what 
we see is only a strip of water, which, for anything 
that reaches our vision, might be bounded at a short 
distance by a rocky shore. When we think of the 
ocean, we take what we see, and in our thought ex- 
tend it indefinitely. We do not imagine it as circling 
about the earth, but as a plane of vast though indefi- 
nite extent. Our conception is always limited, though 
the limit is undefined, and the ocean differs from other 
waters in that it has no limit. Yet none the less do 
we think really of the ocean and of the world. And 
none the less does our analogy help us towards a 
riant knowledge of them. From what has been said, 
it will be seen that by the help of analogy we can 
think truly of what lies beyond our experience, even 
beyond our possible experience ; that our knowledge 
can extend further than our imagination or our power 
of complete conception; and, finally, that the imper- 
fect conceptions which we have are, in spite of their 
imperfection, an approach to true conceptions. 

The truths just stated have an extended application 
to the facts relating to our spiritual nature. The 
reasoning by which has been shown the imperfection 



292 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of our thought of the solar system and of the earth 
itself is applied to our thought of spiritual things, and 
especially to our thought of God. The point at pres- 
ent is, not whether such thoughts arc true, but whether 
they are real thoughts. The analogies upon which 
they are based are so very imperfect, and the rela- 
tions of them are so changed, that it is urged they 
amount to nothing, and in using them we deceive 
ourselves with empty words. After what has been 
said above, this subject need not be treated at length. 
As the globular form of the earth and its vastness 
cannot be united by us in a single complete concep- 
tion, yet the two together do help us to a true thought 
of the earth, so the elements of finite and of infinite 
relations which help us to our thought of God do fur- 
nish us with a real thought, whether it be true or not. 
A merely critical and analytical logic may show these 
in their contradiction, and maintain that they can 
merely result in an unmeaning play of words ; yet a 
true and large logic, perceiving that there are similar 
though smaller difficulties in all our best knowledge, 
thankfully accepts the clue that analogy offers, and 
guards only against a misuse of this instrument. Our 
human love is finite. God is infinite. Contradic- 
tions and difficulties innumerable beset the attempt 
to unite the two in one thought. It does not need a 
very great power of analysis to bring these difficul- 
ties together and exhibit them to the mind that thus, 
for the first time, perhaps, is made conscious of them. 
Yet, just as we know that our thought of the solar 
system is made more clear hy our analogy of form or 
motion, so we are conscious that the analogies implied 



ANALOGY. 293 

in the words infinite love do help ns to a thought 
which is clearer than if we had used no such expres- 
sion. It is not by means of analogy, but by means of 
deduction and induction, that we determine whether 
this thought be true. It is analogy that gives form 
to the thought, and all our concern here is with the 
question whether ii can thus help us to a real thought 
and conception. Yet this fact of the limit in the use 
of analogy must guard us against a misuse of it. Not 
everything that the analogy might involve can be pred- 
icated of the larger object to which it is applied. 
We must use it in a large and free sense, remember- 
ing that it is only an analogy. 

We are thus ready, in conclusion, to look at the 
nature of analogy as. running through the whole grand 
organism of the universe. What we see in one part 
of this organism helps us to understand the rest, for 
all are parts of one magnificent whole. This is what 
we are to understand by the expression that nature 
is full of " correspondences." These correspondences 
connect the highest with the lowest, the material and 
the spiritual. Attraction and love are, as Empedocles 
so long ago affirmed, the same. In other words, 
they are the opposite poles of the axis of being. They 
correspond to each other, and, by analogy, illustrate 
each other. So the lowest organization may illustrate 
the highest. The plant and the body of the animal 
correspond to, and illustrate, the state. In the prog- 
ress of development and the relation of parts each is 
the analagon of the other. Indeed, all development, 
from that of the lowest plant up to that of the highest 
science, is analagous to all other development. Yet 



294 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

these analogies from the lower to the higher must be 
used to illustrate, not to control, our thought of the 
higher. In spite of the resemblance, the higher must 
be free of many limitations which hamper the lower. 
Thus none of these limitations can be made the basis 
of an argument. 

We find an example of the misuse of this argument 
in the oft-repeated analogy between the state and 
any human individual. The man is born, progresses 
through his appointed course, and dies. The state 
also has its birth, its childhood, its youth, its man- 
hood, its period of ignorance, of faith, and of knowl- 
edge. Make the analogy as minute as we will, we 
are struck by its almost limitless application. There- 
fore it is often concluded that every civilization must 
reach its appointed period, and, in like manner, per- 
ish. But, as has just been stated, though we may 
illustrate the higher by the lower, we cannot reason 
with any certainty from the imperfections of the 
lower to those of the higher. To do this we must 
rest our argument, not upon the analogy of similarity, 
but upon that of causation. We must show that the 
same cause is operating in the higher as in the lower. 
Thus, in regard to the necessary death of the state, 
it must be shown that there is in it the same inherent 
cause of limitation as there is in the living body. 
This cannot be shown, for the death of the body re- 
sults from the fact that a part of its elements are 
fixed, and a part are constantly changing, and further 
that the fixed are continually encroaching upon the 
changeable. Now, in the state this is not true. Its 
particles are individuals. These are entirely changed 



STATIC INDUCTION. 295 

with every generation. Thus from the age and death 
of an individual we cannot reason with any confidence 
in regard to the age and necessary death of a nation 
or a civilization. To prove on such a basis as this, 
for instance, that the Hindoos can never have a true 
religion, because their nation has reached the period 
of decrepitude, having passed through the periods of 
youthful faith and manly knowledge, is not to use 
analogy, it is to allow it to run away with us. 

B. INDUCTION. 

a. — STATIC. 

If I put my hand into a bag of marbles, and pull 
out a white one, I can argue from analogy, not that 
all, the marbles are white, but that some of them are, 
for it is not probable that if there were only one white 
one, I should lay hold of it at the first trial. If I 
continue to take marb 1 s from the bag, and they 
continue to be white i first conclude that most of 
them, and, finally, that all of them are white. If, 
however, I go from this bag to another, I cannot rea- 
son with confidence from these to those. But if, after 
examining several ba^s, I find that all contain white 
marbles, I should judge that all in that collection were 
alike. Yet, if I should go into another building, I 
should have to begin my examination afresh. It is 
easy to see, however, that my conclusions may have 
been wrong all along. Even had I taken all but one 
of the marbles from a bag, and all of these had been 
white, the last might chance to be a blac^c one. This 



296 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

reasoning from many examples to all similar objects 
is called induction. The example just given illus- 
trates this in its simplest form. It shows the strength, 
and also the weakness, of this form of reasoning. Yet 
it must be remarked, that among natural objects error 
is less likely to occur than in the example given. In 
the works of man caprice and mistake introduce vari- 
ation where we might least expect it. In the works 
of nature there is more regularity, and our induction 
may move with firmer tread. 

A child that is burnt dreads, by what happens to 
be a correct analogy, all fire. A person chased by a 
mad bull tends for a long time, by a false analogy, to 
fear all cattle. Analogy that is not based on causa- 
tion can thus go but a little way. Induction, how- 
ever, even independent of any knowledge of causation, 
that is, in other words, merely statical, extends far, 
and gives us knowledge which is almost certainty, 
which may indeed sometimes amount to absolute cer- 
tainty. If I see a crow for the first time I should 
have no right to say that all crows are black, any 
more than a man who should see for the first time a 
horse could reason from the color of this one to that 
of all horses. But after the experience which we 
have had ourselves, and the information which others 
have communicated to us, we have no hesitation in 
saying that all crows are black. We know no reason 
why they should be so. We only know that it is im- 
possible that if there were white crows we should 
never have seen or heard of any. Thus it will be 
seen that the basis of statical induction is what is 
called the doctrine of chances. The fornral mention 



STATIC INDUCTION. 297 

of this topic has been reserved to this point, because 
though static analog} r , except in cases that are wholly 
abstract, depends upon this doctrine, it does not so 
much as induction involve the careful calculation of 
chances. 

Nothing in the world is produced absolutely by 
chance. Everything is the result of a force, or 
forces, acting according to regular law. The rela- 
tion of one member of a line of causation to other 
members of the same line is not a matter of chance. 
There is not, however, the same relation between the 
members of one chain of causation and those of 
another. The relation of these last is a matter of 
chance If John goes to a city on business, his being 
there is not a chance occurrence. James goes in the 
same way, by design, and not by chance. But their 
meeting there was not designed. Neither knew of 
the movements of the other, and the movements of 
one had no relation to those of the other. Thus this 
meeting is a matter of chance. 

We often speak of a single occurrence, of which we 
know not the conditions, and thus do notr know 
whether it will or will not take place, as if it were 
a matter of chance. By this is properly meant only 
that it is a matter of chance whether any guess of 
ours would or would not correspond with the reality. 
Thus the expression is often used simply to affirm that 
the matter under consideration is one in regard to 
which we are in some degree ignorant. 

The doctrine or law of chances expresses the method 
by which we can determine, in many cases, the degree 
of the probability of the occurrence of any phenomena 



298 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

with the definite law and circumstances of whiv'h we arc 
acquainted ; in other words, by which we can actually 
express the precise degree of definiteness which our 
knowledge of any subject reaches. This law depends 
upon our faith in the organic unity of the world, that 
faith which we have seen to be one of the fundamen- 
tal instincts of our nature, developed and confirmed by 
experience. The statement of the doctrine of chances 
is this : When the tendencies to produce a certain 
occurrence are equal in different places and times, tliis 
result will be produced with equal frequency in all sim- 
ilar spaces of time ; when these vary in different places 
and times, the frequency of the result will vary with 
them. Of course the obverse of this statement will be 
equally true, and by the frequency and regularity of 
any result we may judge of the comparative strength 
of the tendency to produce it. Thus, we find, in toss- 
ing a die, that one face tends to come uppermost as 
often as another ; that is, in the long run, each face will 
come uppermost one time in six. When this result is 
changed, — when in the long run one face comes up 
oftener than one time in six, — we know that the funda- 
mental conditions have been changed, that the die is 
loaded ; and the degree in which it is loaded may be 
determined by the degree of this frequency* By the 
doctrine of chances, we discover the permanency or va- 
riation of the force that governs the social and physical 
world. On the certainty of this doctrine the greater 
part of our science and that of the provisions of our 
social order depend. The banker, the lawyer, the 
physician, depends upon it for the assurance of his 
regular business and support, and the man of sci- 



STATIC INDUCTION. 299 

once depends upon it for the assurance of the truth 
and permanence of his generalizations and inductions. 
The application of the doctrine of chances to induc- 
tion is this : When we have examined a great number 
of objects of a certain class, and find them all to pos- 
sess similar qualities, we believe that there can be 
small chance that there are any objects of this class 
which do not possess these peculiarities ; for, if there 
were such, we should have come upon some of them 
in our investigation. The greater the number of ex- 
amples on which our result rests, the smaller becomes 
the chance of any exception, until at last this chance 
becomes so small as not to affect our calculations. 
This is the only basis of confidence in what I have 
called static induction. Static induction includes all 
generalizations, whether of coexistence or of sequence, 
where there is no known relation of cause and effect 
between the relations or facts which the induction de- 
cides invariably to coexist or to follow one another. 
We only know that they are thus united. We know 
no reason for the union. We cannot explain its 
causes. We only know that we have always found 
these elements or facts thus connected, and we reason 
that we always shall find them so. All of our de- 
scriptive science rests upon this foundation. We 
make one quality or part of the object or animal the 
mark of a certain class or genus ; and we do this, 
confident that where this mark is found, certain others 
will be found connected with it. That is, the quali- 
ties, whatever they are, we find to be grouped 
together, so that when we meet one or two, we know 
that the others must be found also. This was at first 



300 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the basis of our astronomical knowledge, though 
afterwards dynamical relations were mingled with 
these. In a word, the beginning of all sciences, and 
the completion of man}', rest simply upon observation, 
or what we have called statical induction. We can 
give no reason for our results. We only know that they 
are reliable. What we have always found to coexist, 
we are confident that we shall always find coexisting. 

It need hardly be said that the most careful obser- 
vation is needed, in order that our results may be 
worthy of reliance. Yet no absolute rule can of 
course be given for the limit at which doubt ceases 
and certainty begins. At any moment the discovery 
of an exception may disturb the most carefully 
formed system. But although the point cannot be 
given at which we may rest assured that our induction 
is complete, none the less there is a point where the 
healthy mind takes its result for granted. 

Among cautions and safeguards that should be used 
in this form of reasoning, there is none more important 
than this, that the more widely the objects to which the 
arguments point are separated in space or time from 
those upon which the argument is based, the greater 
should be the caution exercised in reaching the conclu- 
sion, and the less should be the confidence that is placed 
upon it. In merely statical induction we are 
working, it will be remembered, in ignorance of the 
causes that produce the phenomenon which we are 
considering. All we know is that some such causes 
are active here and now. But what change even a 
slight difference in place or time may produce in them, 
we cannot say. This limitation was foreshadowed in 



STATIC INDUCTION. 301 

the illustration with which this discussion commenced. 
We found that we could not reason from one of a 
quantity of bags of marbles to the rest. In fact, 
when w T e left one bag for the others, our induction had 
become simple analogy. The same is true of all dif- 
ference in space or time. What is induction in regard 
to the fauna of one country becomes mere analogy 
when we reason from it to the fauna of another. To 
an inhabitant of Africa a white elephant would seem 
an impossibility. The King of Siam would not be- 
lieve the stories in regard to frozen rivers. His induc- 
tion was correct as far as it related to his own locality. 
His mistake was in extending it to regions of which he 
had no knowledge. To return to an illustration used 
before, it is not actually impossible that a bird may at 
some time be discovered like a crow in all respects, 
save that it is white. In this case we should still call 
it a crow. But the discovery, if ever made, will be 
in some remote region, where the nature of the climate 
is different, and which has not been explored as yet by 
our naturalists. There is the same limitation to stati- 
cal induction in time that there is in space. The un- 
known causes of phenomena vary in one as well as in 
the other, and phenomena vary with them. What is 
true at one age is not necessarily true at another. 
Doubtless, at some period, all horses were of one color ; 
indeed, wild animals of the same species are apt to 
have small divergence in this respect. Thus in one age 
there may be similarity ; in another, difference. This 
limitation of induction by time is strongly urged by the 
advocates of what is called the development theory. 
Nothiug is more absolutely established by scientific 



302 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

induction than the permanence of species. The lines 
that separate them are impassable. Yet it is urged, 
by the believers of the theory referred to, that this 
generalization, however true of the present, cannot be 
extended back into the uncounted ages of t':e past, in 
which the conditions of life, that during the historic 
period have had a certain permanence, were passing 
through slow yet almost immeasurable change. 

Another limitation of statical induction is that of 
Kind. We cannot extend our results to objects 
greatly differing in kind from those which we have 
actually observed. An example of this nature is 
found in the difference between mind and matter. 
Mr. Mill, in his logic, asserts that we can conceive 
of a world that is not governed by the laws of causa- 
tion. He seems, however, to find it impossible to 
believe that mind is not governed strictly by this law. 
We will not here stop to inquire whether we can con- 
ceive of a world not governed by causation, whether 
such a so-called world would be a world ; nor, on the 
other hand, whether the mind is what is technically 
termed a free agent. Our point of interest in the 
matter is simply this, that the induction from objects 
in the physical world in which we live can much more 
safely be extended to the most remote physical world, 
rather than into the realm of mind or spirit. That 
is, mind is more widely separated from these physical 
objects by a difference in kind, than the furthest physi- 
cal world is separated from them by difference in space. 
All questions in regard to the freedom and other 
qualities of the mind must be determined by the stud}' 



STATIC INDUCTION. 303 

cf the mind itself. No induction from the outer world 
can be extended to it with absolute confidence. 

Having thus considered the limits of statical in- 
duction, and the caution needed in its use, we have 
to notice the principle that should always guide and 
control its use. This is, that its result should be as 
well defined, as complete, and as minute as possible. 
It is not enough, for instance, to know that a certain 
animal, say the gorilla, is found in Africa. We 
wish to know, first, the limits within which it is 
found, and, secondly, the size, the shape, the habits, 
in a word, the whole anatomical structure and exter- 
nal life of the animal, — in what it resembles the ape. 
in what it resembles man. In fact, the first great 
difference that strikes us between merely popular 
knowledge on the one side, and scientific knowledge 
on the other, is the loose, general, and vague charac- 
ter of the one, and the precise, accurate, and minute 
character of the other. Science ensures this accu- 
racy by carefulness of observation, by registry and 
comparison of all results, and by measuring whatever 
can be measured. In fact, this matter of measure- 
ment is the grand element of statical induction. The 
beginning of many a science dates from the discovery 
of some method of measurement. Without the 
thermometer there could be no thermology. With- 
out the gonometer there could be no crystallography. 
Science thus carries its measurement everywhere. 
It measures the planets and weighs them. It meas- 
ures their orbits. It measures and weighs the earth 
and the sun. It is as accurate in the minute elements 
as in the vast. It tells us exactly how many pulsa- 



304 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT, 



tions are needed for the dullest or sharpest sound; 
for the most dazzling red, or the most delicate violet 

Equally with this accuracy of measurement does 
it need accuracy of language. It must have a name 
for everything, — some fixed, hard word, that shall 
stand for this one thing, and for nothing else. Thus, 
at first sight, any science is a mass of terms. It 
would almost startle an ignorant mortal to learn what 
vast numbers of hard names are needed to define all 
the parts of his bodily system, which he carries about, 
as it were, embodied in himself. Poets complain that 
their sweetest flowers are made to bear the same bur- 
den of ponderous nomenclature. Yet this terminol- 
ogy is an essential element of science. It is the rec- 
ord of its analyses and of its discoveries. 

When we have said this, we have said all that con- 
cerns us in regard to statical induction. It is a vast 
system of observation, of measurement, and of ter- 
minology. Some sciences are mainly confined with- 
in this sphere. These are the descriptive sciences, 
botany, zoology, and the like. They have indeed ■ 
some relations in which they extend beyond this ; but 
mainly they are the result and the record of this vast 
observation and delicate measurement. Yet these 
magnificent results do not wholly satisfy us. These 
measurements, so gigantic or so minute, are only the 
preparation for the induction that most attracts our 
minds. It is not enough to see this srreat world of 
phenomena existing side by side, with no active re- 
lation to each other. We wish to see them at work. 
The great question of cause forces itself upon us. 
We wish to know the cause of every effect, and the 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 305 

effect of every object which we know must be in 
many directions a cause. Static induction is only 
the introduction to dynamic induction. We may re- 
mark in passing, that static induction bears the 
same relation to dynamic, that we found the term to 
bear to the proposition. As the verb brings the ob- 
jects or qualities that had stood side by side into 
active relation, so dynamic induction, the induction 
of cause and effect, reveals to us the forces acting 
and reacting among the objects which before we had 
simply observed in the relation of space and of 
time. 

b. — DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 



The first results of induction in regard to causation 
are merely empiric. We find that certain causes 
• produce certain effects, though we cannot tell in what 
manner these effects are produced by these causes, 
i Thus the empiric form of dynamic induction would 
t rest on no stronger and no different basis than that 
which is the foundation of static induction, but for 
the fact that dynamic induction has two advantages. 
The first is, that instead of dealing with groups loose- 
ly bound together, it can single out the active mem- 
ber of each group, the essential clement of the union, 
though it may not be able to explain the nature of its 
power, or the method of its working. And the sec- 
ond advantage which dynamic induction has over 
static is, that it can call to its aid the force and the 
artifices of experiment. 

20 



306 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

For reaching reliable results by the aid of empiric 
dynamic induction two methods have been given. 
One of them is called the method of agreement; the 
other, the method of difference. The method of 
agreement watches to see whether, when certain causes 
are present, certain effects arc produced. The meth- 
od of difference comes with the more searching query 
whether the effect is never produced if these causes 
are absent. The two together give us results upon 
which we can rely. As an example, suppose the ques- 
tion is in regard to the utility of any fertilizer. One 
man may say that he has used it on his farm for sev- 
eral years, and has always had first-rate crops ; also, 
that he has seen it used elsewhere with the same re- 
sult. This is the method of agreement. Another man 
is not satisfied with such proof. He says, Perhaps 
your farm was of specially good soil, or perhaps you 
have seen it tried under some other favorable circum- 
stances. He resolves to give a fairer trial. He takes 
different parts of his farm, and divides each into two 
sections, both possessing the same soil, the same slope, 
the same natural advantages and disadvantages. Of 
these sections he dresses one with the common, the 
other with the new, fertilizer. He takes account of 
the seed he plants. He is very careful to expend the 
same culture on both ; and finally makes a careful 
estimate of the crop gathered from each. Here all 
the circumstances in both members of each pair of 
sections are similar, except that in one the old, and in 
the other the new, fertilizer was made use of. What- 
ever difference, then, there is in the crop must depend 
<*d the different fertilizer used, and if in every case 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 307 

the result is the same, there can be no doubt of the 
cause. Thus the loose statement, "I used such 
dressing and had a first-rate crop," is replaced by the 
more careful and scientific detail just given. An- 
other familiar example would be this : A man 
hears that alum will clear the turbid water of his 
well. He takes some of the water in a glass, he 
puts a little alum into it, and in a short time the 
water is clear. He is satisfied with the experiment. 
One less read}- to believe would say, "Perhaps the 
water settled itself simply by standing." He would 
place two glasses of the water side by side. Into 
one he would put alum, into the other he w T ould put 
nothing. If the one to which the alum is added be- 
comes clear, while the other is still turbid, as this 
addition is the only difference in the circumstances of 
the two, to it must be ascribed the difference in the 
result. From these examples will be seen, very 
clearly, the distinction between the method of agree- 
ment and the method of difference. The first is the 
source of much of our popular knowledge, and also 
of much of our popular prejudice. A person ob- 
serving a certain fact to accompany in a few cases a 
certain result, takes it for granted, without looking 
further, that the two are bound together by the law of 
causation. The very fact of noticing the connection 
in one or two cases would lead one to notice it in 
i others, and to overlook those in which the two faets 
occur separately. If, for instance, one has a notion, 
or has ever heard, that Friday is an unlucky day, he 
S ve-ry naturally calls to mind all the unlucky events 
i connected with that day. The list can easily be 



808 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

made a long one, containing one-seventh of all the 
misfortunes that come to his knowledge, and the per- 
son might naturally make up his mind that there was 
a connection between the day and these unfortunate 
occurrences. Thus it is that the method of agreement, 
hastily used, leads to many false results, which the 
method of difference alone can corrrct. 

A complication often arises from the fact that the 
same result may be produced by different causes. 
Thus, how many are the circumstances that affect the 
weather, or the social prosperity of any community! 
In such cases, the method of difference cannot be used 
with perfect strictness. Every one of the circum- 
stances concerned may be in turn omitted or varied, 
and the result may be still the same. The fact that 
the result takes place without the presence of the cir- 
cumstance, which may be supposed to be one of its 
causes, does not prove that it may not have been such 
in other cases. The fact that men often sleep without 
opium does not prove that opium does not often cause 
sleep. The fact that many men have reached a high 
degree of mental development without opportunities 
of education, or of moral development without any 
definite form of religion, does not prove that educa- 
tion and religion may not be considered as causes of 
such results. From the fact that under one system 
of laws a nation has reached a certain height of pros- 
perity, while another, with a different system, has 
reached the same, it does not follow that each of these 
S3'stems may not, in the one case and the other, have 
co-operated to this result. Inattention to this fact is 
the cause of many popular fallacies and much false 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 309 

reasoning. The difficulty which this multiplicity of 
causes, each able to produce a similar result, occasions 
in the attempt to prove that either of them is actually 
such a cause, may be met by various methods. One 
is by that of deduction. We can reason from what 
must be the effect of a certain cause to what has been 
its effect, which, however, leads us forward to the 
department of rational dynamics. Another method 
is to apply the doctrine of chances. If the two facts 
are oftener connected than would be the case merely 
by chance, we judge that there must be some relation 
of cause and effect between them. In other words, in 
such cases the method of difference can be but imper- 
fectly used, and we are obliged to fall back, mainly, 
on that of agreement. 

Before leaving the method of difference, there is a 
modification of it to be considered, required in any 
attempt to apply it to those natural causes which are 
permanent, and which thus cannot be removed for 
the sake of experiment. This modification is called 
the method of concomitant variations. In experi- 
ments on heat we cannot wholly remove the force of 
heat from any body. We can, however, increase and 
diminish it. We can study the effect of this change, 
and thus reach results as accurate as if we could com- 
pare the effects of its presence and absence. This 
method of concomitant variations, though it has been 
exalted to the rank of an independent method, is 
strictly, as has been said above, a modification of the 
method of difference. 

There is, however, another method which deserves 
a distinct place. This is called the method of unex- 



310 THE SCIEM.^3 OP THOUGHT. 

plained residuums. I wisk to discover the presence 
or absence of any agent in producing a given result. 
Other causes have contributed to produce it. The 
question is whether they alone were sufficient for this 
end. The method of determining this is to calculate 
the effect of each of these, subtract this from the com- 
mon result, and then examine whether there be any- 
thing left to require for its explanation the influence 
of any additional force. Thus, if we were examining 
a case of so-called spiritual manifestation, we should 
first seek, and if we found it subtract, the influence 
of deception. If we found there was no chance for 
this, or only a very slight chance, we should proceed 
to examine what we had present as a bona fide fa<^t. 
We should next look for the effects which might be 
produced in certain temperaments by an excited or 
exalted state of the nervous system. This might 
produce a certain fluenc}' and exaltation of speech, 
not habitual with the individual, perhaps not even 
possible to him in his ordinary state. This effect is, 
as experience teaches us, no unusual result of such a 
state. But we might still find a residuum unex- 
plained. There might be an acquaintance with facts 
of which the person in his normal state could know 
nothing. Here we might bring into consideration 
the force known as animal magnetism. This we know 
produces a certain clairvoyant power, and also ren- 
ders an individual susceptible to influences from cer- 
tain persons with whom he may be, by chance or 
design, en rapport. Here, then, we have certain known 
causes. One is the involuntary and exalted utter- 
ances which may be produced by certain abnormal 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 311 

states of the nervous system. The other is the power 
of clairvoyance and the subjection to foreign wills, or 
even to foreign personalities, which may be produced 
by the mesmeric state. Then, after these have been 
subtracted, there remains the question, whether any- 
thing is left requiring some additional cause. The 
nervous sensibility of the person whose case we are 
considering may in its excited state be compared to 
a sensitive photographic plate, receiving impressions 
from every object about it. We cannot, as in the 
photographic example, shut out all influences, leaving 
only the one which we have to study. We must ex- 
amine it, and find whether in this confused mass of 
impressions, produced by the memory or the imagi- 
nation, or imprinted upon it by the wills, or even by 
the personalities, of any who may chance to be near, 
there is also an impression that would require for its 
cause the influence of some disembodied spirit. 

Though this is the first direct reference to the 
method of residues that has been made in this work, 
it has been tacitly assumed in all that has been said 
above in regard to the different methods of induc- 
tion. The simplest case of the method of agreement 
involves the method of unexplained residues, for the 
effect of chance must be eliminated before any result 
can be reached. This, as was intimated above, comes 
into very marked prominence in those cases in which 
the method of difference cannot be tried. Besides 
the case mentioned above, where there were a multi- 
plicity of causes, each capable of effecting the result 
under consideration, we have other cases w T here the 
forces are not under our control. So many circuni- 



312 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

stances affect the process, and do this in ways so 
delicate, that although we make in two cases precisely 
the same preparations, in the one we obtain the end 
sought, while in the other we fail. This is the case 
very frequently with experiments in regard to some 
new agent, especially in regard to one of a delicate 
nature. At first, it is not known how to preserve 
the experiment free from foreign influences. It may 
be that only now and then such an experiment will 
succeed ; but this success may be of so striking a na- 
ture as to exclude the possibility of its being a chance 
product. We exclude all the possible results of 
chance from our calculation, and have left one or two 
facts which demand other explanation. This cannot 
be illustrated better than by reference to phenomena, 
the nature of which is not yet settled in the minds of 
men generally, though a belief in their being the ex- 
pression of some heretofore unrecognized agent has 
been slowly gaining ground. The phenomena referred 
to are those which come under the general heads of 
animal magnetism, clairvoyance, and the like. In 
these, supposing them to be what they appear, the 
effects are produced by some force, or forces, which 
it is impossible for most to control, and therefore 
nearly all the experiments made miscellaneously must 
be failures. Thus a person may have dreams all his 
life, which are mere idle fancies. All the persons of 
whom he has knowledge may have had the same ex- 
perience. Yet he may, some night, have a dream 
which corresponds with minute accuracy to some per- 
haps painful event that is at the time going on else- 
where. The question to be decided is, whether it is 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 313 

too minute to be the effect of chance. If, after having 
eliminated the possible effects of chance, there remain 
a striking accuracy of detail, it must be supposed 
that there was some reason for this. It would not 
follow that dreams are generally reliable, but that 
sometimes a person may be drawn into sympathy 
with some distant friend, or may, while sleeping in 
the ordinary way, fall, spontaneously, into the deeper 
sleep of the magnetic or clairvoyant state. Thus it is 
with all those occult sympathies which spring to light 
very rarely, but then in so striking a manner as to 
forbid the possibility of considering them merely acci- 
dental coincidences. The same is more strikingly 
true in cases in which the person who may be exam- 
ining them exercises, by his very presence, a nega- 
tive and hindering influence. Not only can his own 
experiments never succeed, but his very presence 
hinders the success of others. All such phenomena 
must be studied with peculiar care. Nothing is more 
remarkable than the fact that phenomena, so perfectly 
authenticated as those under consideration, should be 
utterly disbelieved by many. The reason is the diffi- 
culty of success in ordinaiy experiment, and the neg- 
lect to eliminate the possibilities of chance from the 
facts that cannot be denied, and thus discovering the 
unexplained residuum which demands some additional 
cause. The student and thinker who would enlarge 
the boundaries of human knowledge has, in such 
phenomena, a vast and comparatively unexplored 
field of research. It is difficult, it is true, to accom- 
plish anything definite and satisfactory in this field ; 
but even in unimportant matters it is the shyness of 



314 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the game that gives zest to the chase ; and discoveries 
in the Held referred to would do more than almost 
anything else to shed light upon the most interesting 
facts and relations of our nature. 

Another example of the method of unexplained 
residues, and one more interesting to the general 
reader, is found in a process constantly going on in 
general thought and literature. It is the method 
often applied on a grand scale and unconsciously. 
When a man, namely, undertakes to explain some 
phenomenon by one of the many causes that have co- 
operated to produce it, his work in its direct object 
is a failure, but vet he does service, for bv r showing 
what this one cause can accomplish he shows, uncon- 
sciously, the need of other causes, and also defines 
the sphere of these others. An example of what is 
meant by that which has just been said may be found 
in the famous chapters of Gibbon, which attempt to 
explain the rise and progress of Christianity by merely 
natural and finite causes. How far such an attempt 
might be successful we have not here to consider. 
What we have to notice is, that whatever infinite and 
divine cause were working behind and through Chris- 
tianity, these finite causes were working with it ; and 
the effect of this grand and special cause cannot be 
seen and understood until we have found how much 
can be explained by these ordinary and finite causes. 
Thus such an undertaking as that of Gibbon, what- 
ever its intention and whatever its results, should 
really be regarded as tending to exhibit the divine 
origin of Christianity, if it had such a special divine 
origin, by the method of an unexplained residuum. 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 315 

These remarks will not be understood as an attempt 
to give a complete view of the nature and import of 
these chapters, but simply as using them to illus- 
trate the point under consideration. 

Another example of the same kind is furnished by 
the work of Darwin, on the " Origin of Species." This 
work, as is well known, attempts to prove from the 
transformations that all animals arc liable to undergo 
in correspondence with outward changes, and espe- 
cially from the incorporation of these variations into 
permanent varieties or species, that all species and 
varieties of living creatures originated in this way 
from one common source. This book was received 
with a great outcry of indignation by those who be- 
lieved the permanence of species to be matter of sci- 
entific, and even of religious, certainty. But what- 
ever our views of this may be, all must admit that 
the law of natural selection is one of the forces at 
work in the world. Variations in the structure and 
habits of animals are continually taking place. 
However fixed and definite species may be, these 
variations play about them, and thus we can never 
understand the true nature and permanence of spe- 
cies, until persistent attempts in the path Darwin has 
pointed out have proved how much can be explained 
by this law of natural selection, and thus shown, by 
the method of unexplained residuum, what must be 
accounted for by the existence of fixed and perma- 
nent species. Another illustration is the attempt to 
explain vital functions by chemical forces. These 
forces do co-operate in nil vital processes. What- 
ever may be the special object in the attempt referred 



316 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to, its result will be to show, by the method we are 
considering, what is the extent and nature of the vi- 
tal force, and without such attempts we should never 
reach this understanding. 

But examples of this sort need not be detailed. 
We can find them everywhere, in the highest matters 
and in the lowest ; whether it be the application of the 
sternest criticism to the Bible, or whether it concern 
merely some trivial matter, every such attempt is, 
consciously or unconsciously, the application of the 
logical method of unexplained residues to the clear- 
ing up and the making definite of our knowledge. 
All schools in science or philosophy, all sects in re- 
ligion, all theorizers who have ability and patience to 
carry out their theory into detail, no matter how 
narrow these schools or these theories may be, are 
yet working out into clear, sharp outline the general 
sum and substance of our knowledge. Each de- 
taches something from the common mass, and, by the 
method of the unexplained residuum, leaves more 
definite and comprehensible the result of other and 
more general forces. 

It must be remarked, however, in concluding what 
is here said of the method of unexplained residues, 
that it cannot be regarded as absolutely final. What 
one analysis leaves, as not to be explained except by 
means of some special force or agency, a sharper 
analysis may open, or may even remove altogether, 
by showing that the force, or agent, supposed at first 
to be necessary for all, is in reality not needed for 
any, everything being accounted for by other and 
more ordinary causes. 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 317 



b. — RATIONAL DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 

The processes we have just studied have been 
purely empirical. The results of such processes we 
cannot, except by other methods, explain. We can 
only say that we have proved them to exist. But 
dynamical induction is by no means satisfied by such 
coarse processes and such crude results. It will not 
only seek by observation to bind together cause and 
effect; its grandest triumphs consist in showing the 
necessary connection between cause and effect. The 
empirical generalization must be large indeed that 
forbids any chance of error, but so soon as we reach 
these necessary relations, we find ourselves on the 
solid ground. By rational causes is meant causes that 
admit an explanation of the manner of their work- 
ing. Of empirical causes we can only say that they 
are such. Of rational causes we can say why they 
are such. Yet few, if any, causes are wholly ration- 
al. Every object and every force has its original 
nature, by which it produces such and such effects. 
This nature is an original fact not to be explained. 
No science of optics, however perfect, can explain 
why any external combination should produce in us 
the special sensation which we call red, bine, or 
green. Our most rational causes are, therefore, more 
or less mixed. The problem is to reduce the empiri- 
cal to a minimum, and to raise the rational to a max- 
imum. 

The difference between the two may be readily il- 
lustrated. The physician administers quinine for 



318 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the intermittent fever. The remedy is purely em- 
pirical. He administers it because he has found it to 
be a remedy in such cases ; but of its working, from 
beginning to end, he knows nothing. When, on the 
other hand, he prescribes antimony for certain dis- 
eases of the lungs, he knows, in part, what he is 
about. He knows the precise effect which his reme- 
dy produces upon the lungs ; he knows, also, the pre 
cise state of the lungs; he knows, therefore, how hi 
remedy, acting as it does, will relieve them. He 
does not know the reason for the primary action of 
his drug. His knowledge of this is as purely em- 
pirical as his knowledge of the effects of quinine in 
the intermittent fever. Yet, in the former case, all 
after the first step is clear ; while in the latter the 
whole is involved in mystery. The one is in part 
rational and in part empirical. The other is wholly 
empirical. When, however, he prescribes iron for 
some state of the blood, he deals with causes much 
more purely rational. The blood is deficient in iron ; 
he simply supplies what is lacking to its complete- 
ness. 

It would seem as if the tracing of the actual trans- 
fer of a body from one set of relations to another 
would furnish the nearest possible approach to a ra- 
tional explanation of the working of any cause. The 
transfer of force, however, approaches this standard 
more nearly. A body of whatever kind has its own 
peculiar properties which are active in all causation 
of which it forms a part. These qualities are always 
irrational, that is, they admit of no explanation. 
They are purely empirical. Force, however, is pure- 






• 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 319 

\y abstract. It has no qualities. It is susceptible 
of mathematical formulas. Its presence and its de- 
gree can thus be demonstrated, and what can be 
demonstrated is in the highest sense of the word 
rational. 

Hypotheses may be formed in regard to either em- 
pirical or rational causes. An hypothesis that admits 
of merely empirical proof is, however, little more 
than a guess. We conjecture that a certain agent 
may produce a certain effect, and by the method of 
agreement and that of difference we determine whether 
it be so or not. So far, the result is merely empirical. 
It becomes rational, so far as we are able to explain its 
method, and show why and how this agent produces 
this special effect. 

The course in regard to the verification of rational 
hypotheses is very different from this. A rational 
hypothesis is proved to be true when it is shown that it 
completely explains the phenomena under considera- 
tion, while nothing else can be thought of that would do 
this. To verify such an hypothesis, then, one must 
develop all the results that would spring from the 
supposed cause ; must examine, most minutely and 
accurately, all the phenomena to be explained, in all 
their relations, and if the two results cover each 
other, that is, if nothing could result from the cause 
that we cannot find in the phenomena, and there is 
nothing in the phenomena that cannot be explained by 
the cause, we are justified in assuming the hypothesis 
to be correct, and the cause to be a true one. Two 
or three examples will illustrate what has been said, 
and also suggest certain qualifications of it. 



320 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

I have already referred to the fact, that a short time 
ago it was the custom to explain electrical phenomena 
by the hypothesis of what was called the electric- 
fluid. This hypothesis existed under two forms. One 
school affirmed that there were two fluids, which il 
called respectively vitreous and resinous ; the other 
affirmed that there was but one fluid, and the two elec- 
trical states were called positive and negative. 
Nearly all electrical phenomena were explained with 
equal ease and satisfactoriness by either of these then 
ries, while the latter, that of one fluid, had the advan- 
tage of greater apparent simplicity. Each, however, 
had its weak point. The theory of the one fluid pro- 
ceeded triumphantly, till it met the fact that negative 
bodies repel each other in the same way that positive 
bodies do. Here the theory of two fluids met the 
case exactly. The vitreous and resinous electricities 
each attracts the other and repels itself. The defend- 
ers of the one fluid found themselves in difficulty. 
Franklin, the originator of this theory, confesses that 
when he originated it he was not aware of this nega- 
tive repulsion. The most obvious explanation would 
seem to be, to claim that unelectrifled matter repels 
itself; but this is counter to our common experience, 
that particles of matter, except when they are forced 
into too close proximity, have a mutually attractive 
force. The explanation relied on was this : Two 
negative bodies do not repel each other, though they 
appear to do this. They are attracted by the positive 
bodies which surround them on all sides. This at- 
traction is equal in all directions, except in that where 
another negative body by its presence replaces and de- 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 321 

etro) s this attraction. Two negative bodies are attract- 
ed in all directions except towards each other. Thus 
they are drawn apart, as if they repelled each other. 
But while the defenders of the theory of one fluid were 
■breed to this awkward detour to avoid a difficulty, 
they had on the other hand an experimenlum cruris, 
which gave their antagonists no less trouble. If a 
Leyden jar be heavily charged, and its two poles be 
made to touch opposite sides of a card, yet in such a 
way that they shall not be directly opposite to each 
other, we find, when the jar is discharged, this very 
striking result : from the positive pole there is a line 
burned, marking the course of the electricity till it 
reaches the point opposite the negative pole. There 
is at that point a hole where it has struck through to 
complete its circuit. From the negative pole, on the 
other side of the card, there is no such line. The 
positive or vitreous electricity thus leaves its very au- 
tograph. The negative, or resinous, makes not even 
its mark. We have thus two theories, each plausible up 
to a certain point, each failing there. This failure ill 
each does not surprise us, now that we know that there 
are neither two fluids nor one, that there is no such 
thing as an electric fluid at. all, but that what we call 
eleetricity, like what we call light and heat, is only a 
form of molecular motion. 

Another illustration is furnished by the long con- 
troversy, now happily at an end, between the defend- 
ers of the corpuscular and the undulatory theories of 
light. The corpuscular theory was at first sight the 
most plausible. It fitted in admirably with the more 
obvious phenomena to be explained. The precision 



322 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 






and regularity of the movement of reflected light, its 
apparently smooth and clean outline, its regular re 
bound, the angle of reflection equalling the angle of 
incidence, — all of this so completely resembled th 
motion and the rebound of a thrown ball, that it is not 
singular that the most scientific minds should hav 
rested content with this explanation. Its first diffi- 
culty came with the phenomena of refraction. Why 
are these corpuscles thrown out of their path on pass- 
ing from one medium into another of different density r 
The clumsy explanation, clumsy, though the best that 
could be devised, was, that these corpuscles were at- 
tracted towards the denser medium when they entered 
it, and thus were drawn out of their course, and 
moved while passing through this denser medium at 
a different angle from that which their motion had pre- 
viously described. On leaving it they are attracted 
backwards towards it, and thus move on a line paral- 
lel to their original course, though on a different 
plane. Even Newton was so convinced of the truth 
of the corpuscular theory, from its complete fitness in 
other respects, that he was satisfied with the explana- 
tion, of refraction just given. But when the phenom- 
ena of polarized light began to be fairly understood, 
the corpuscular theory had to make use of so many 
fictions, and such elaborate complications of its first 
beautiful simplicity, that it was soon given up by sci- 
entific men. The undulatory theory had this disad- 
vantage to contend with, that its application to the 
common phenomena of light was less obvious than to 
the more delicate. It was very easy to point to a 
smooth, round ray of light, and ask if that smooth 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 323 

outline could be the result of undulation. If the 
undulatory theory were true, light, it was said, would, 
on passing through any opening, distribute itself at once 
in all directions, instead of following its straight course 
until it met with a rebound. With refraction, the 
undulatory theory was at once at home. Here it 
needed only the very natural hypothesis, that the 
undulations were somewhat slower in a dense than 
in a rare medium. But the undulatory theory found 
itself most completely at home with the phenomena 
of polarized light, where its opponent had failed. 
And, finally, it was at last demonstrated that the lines 
of light and shade are not clear and smooth. Every 
shadow has its fringe, and the phenomena of trans- 
mitted and reflected light are just what they should 
be if the undulatory theory were true. But the grand 
triumph of this theory consists in the fact that it is 
capable of absolute mathematical demonstration. The 
undulations can be measured and counted. It is mar- 
vellous to what minute accuracy this measurement can 
be carried, so that we know that to produce the violet 
ray are needed fifty-nine thousand seven hundred 
ind fifty undulations to an inch. Not only can the 
number of these undulations be calculated, but all 
the laws of their interference and their harmonies are 
susceptible of the most minute and complete demon- 
stration, and the results of this demonstration coincide, 
at every point, with the facts of the case. The polar- 
ization of light, the fringes of shadows, the fact of two 
rays of light uniting to form darkness, the fact that 
the brightness of light may be under certain circum- 
stances increased by obstructing and keeping back 



324 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

portions of it, so that only the undulations that harmo- 
nize pass, while those that interfere are kept back, — 
all of these diverse, strange, and, at first, bewildering 
phenomena seem only the play-ground of this undula- 
tory theory, such an easy, simple, and beautiful solution 
does it supply to them all. This is what in these days 
is called science. 

The consideration of these theories of light suggests 
two qualifications of the principle of rational dynamic 
induction which was laid down above. The first is 
this, that when a theory, or hypothesis, becomes more 
and more complicated to satisfy the demands of fresh 
phenomena, even though it may succeed in explaining 
them, it is an indication of its falseness. The cor- 
puscular theory could explain, after a fashion, the 
polarization of light ; but the corpuscles had to be so 
manipulated to accomplish this that they could hardly 
hold their own after it. Another example of the 
same kind is found in the history of the phlogistic 
theory of combustion. The burning body, it was 
said, gives out its phlogiston. But closer analysis 
showed that all the results of combustion, when col- 
lected and weighed, are heavier than the body was 
before it was burned. This seemed to conflict with 
the theory of phlogiston, for if anything was given 
out, the body should have lost weight instead of gain- 
ing it. But there was never a theory yet that would 
not undertake to give some explanation of all facts, 
however contradictory to what it would have sup- 
posed. The defence set up for phlogiston was, that 
it possessed the property of specific levity, so that 
with it the body was lighter than without it. 






DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 325 

Perhaps the most striking example of a theory 
proved false by its increasing cnmbersomeness and 
complication is furnished by the theory of cycles and 
epicycles, by means of which the movements of the 
heavenly bodies were explained by the early astrono- 
mers. They, not being able to conceive the possi- 
bility that these bodies should be self-sustained, 
imagined them to be attached to crystal spheres. 
The revolution of these spheres was supposed to be 
the cause of the apparent revolution of these bodies. 
With the discovery of the satellites of the planets, and 
of the variations in the movement of the various 
bodies, more crystal spheres and new revolutions had 
to be added, until at last was produced such a com- 
plicated system that the very thought of it is bewil- 
dering. It is no wonder that Alphonso of Castile 
exclaimed, that if God had consulted him he could 
have sus^ested a better arrangement. The wonder- 
ful thing about it is, that this theory actually did ex- 
plain all the movements of the heavenly bodies, on 
the hypothesis that the earth was the centre about 
which all revolved. If mere success in explaining 
the facts of any case, so far as they are known, could 
prove an hypothesis correct, this had that proof. But 
its complication showed its falseness. How different 
was the true theory when it came ! A single word, 
and the whole story was told. 

The second qualification suggested by the exam- 
ples referred to is that an hypothesis capable of 
mathematical demonstration gains thereby the highest 
degree of certainty. A general knowledge of the 
movements of the planets and of the moon might 



326 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

satisfy common minds that the hypothesis oi univer- 
sal gravitation was correct. It was, however, a mere 
guess, until Newton applied the power of mathemat- 
ics to the question and settled it forever. He proved 
that the moon moved precisely so far towards the 
earth in a given time as it would if it were drawn to- 
wards it by gravitation ; and yet some would claim 
for those who had merely guessed the fact of this 
relation of the heavenly bodies an honor akin to his 
who demonstrated it. Comparatively few discoveries 
have not existed as conjectures in the minds of many 
before their truth was fully demonstrated. The 
honor of them belongs to him w T ho proves them to be 
true. A similar example is furnished by what is 
called the correlation of forces, which is now no longer 
a theory merely, but a fact. A popular argument for 
the truth that light, heat, electricity, etc., are only 
varieties of motion, and thus different forms of one 
force, can be made from the fact that each may pro- 
duce, or pass into, the other. Motion, friction for 
example, produces electricity, heat, and finally light. 
Electricity produces, or becomes, motion, light, and 
heat. Heat produces motion, electricity, and light. 
Whichever you start with, you find yourself having 
to do with the others. This popular argument be- 
comes a scientific demonstration when the relation 
between these forces, which we know to be forms 
of the same force, can be expressed by figures more 
easitv than the relations of gravitation itself. The 
heat generated by the concussion of a falling ball of 
lead against the earth may be calculated with perfect 
accuracy, if the size of the ball and the distance it has 



DYNAMIC INDUCTION. 327 

fallen be known. Thus a ball of lead of a given size, 
falling from a given height, may furnish a standard 
of measurement for heat. And, on the other side, we 
have this marvellous confirmation of the theory, 
namely, that the heat thus generated is precisely 
what would be needed, if rightly applied, say by 
means of steam, to lift the same ball to the height 
from which it fell. This is the perfection of the 
mathematical demonstration of a rational hypothesis. 
It must be remarked, however, that an hypothesis, 
though susceptible of mathematical expression and 
proof, is subject to all the other conditions of proof 
to which other rational hypotheses are subject. It 
must be the only conceivable power that can lie be- 
hind, and express itself through , these mathematical 
formulas. Moreover these formulas must be capable 
of various and corroborating application. Thus, the 
fact that we can calculate the number and weight of 
the meteors which would be required to keep up the 
heat of the sun to its present degree, by their concus- 
sion against its surface after having been drawn to it 
from afar by the might of gravitation, does not prove 
the truth of the theory. If there were, to our knowl- 
edge, precisely this amount of meteoric matter falling 
upon the sun, then the demonstration would be self- 
proved, like that of the relation between motion and 
heat, just referred to. Again, the fact that the hypoth- 
esis of ultimate atoms is adapted to the mathematical 
relations of chemical combination, and to those of 
pressure and expansion, does not prove its truth. 
This hypothesis is a convenience ; but we can suppose 
another structure of bodies that would satisfy the 



328 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

same demand. Thus we may calculate the relations 
of a circle by supposing it to consist of an infinite 
number of straight sides ; but though this is a conven- 
ience we do not imagine it to be the truth. So, 
also, if we may borrow a beautiful example used by 
Schopenhauer to oppose the atomic theory, we may 
speak of motion as if it were made up of spaces of 
rest and motion alternating. A rapid motion we may 
explain to be that in which the spaces of rest are the 
smaller ; slow motion that in which they are the larger. 
This is precisely similar to the way in which we ex- 
plain specific gravity by the atomic theory. If the 
result is false in the one case, it may not be true in 
the other. It may serve further to modify our confi- 
dence in mathematical demonstration, as furnishing 
absolute proof of the truth of any hypothesis, to re- 
member that the theory of cycles and epicycles above 
described was a perfect triumph of mathematical rea- 
soning, though it proved to be founded on an utter 
misconception of the true relations of the heavenly 
bodies to one another and to the earth. In fine, all 
the pre-eminence that can be claimed for the mathe- 
matical demonstration of hypotheses exists when it is 
added to other proof, not when it replaces this. 

From what has been said, it will appear that noth- 
ing can do more to disturb our absolute confidence 
in the truth of any hypothesis, than the discovery of 
another hypothesis which furnishes an equally satisfac- 
tory solution of the problem. This is the reason why 
any scientific or theological school opposes, with so 
much force, a new hypothesis, which would furnish 
an explanation of any phenomena, in a maimer differ- 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 329 

ent from the established and time-honored one. The 

very presence of the new seems to cast doubt upou 
the old. 



C. — ORGANIC INDUCTION. — INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 

In another place the propriety of forming hypothe- 
ses based upon the notion of final causes has been 
considered. We have now to consider the kind of 
proof and of certainty which belongs to this field of 
inquiry. It must be confessed that the passage from 
dynamic to organic induction, from the study of 
working or efficient causes to that of final causes, is 
like that from the clearness of day into the dimness 
of twilight. Every man who ever acted from a pur- 
pose and for an end is certain of the existence of final 
causes. Still, in special cases, we have not as a gen- 
eral thing a clear, mathematical demonstration of their 
existence and of the manner of their operation. In 
dynamic induction, as we have seen, the more minute 
our search the more certain becomes our result. In 
regard to organic induction, though we may be sure 
of general truths, yet the more minute our search the 
less sure we are of our ground. The great difficulty 
in regard to the study of final causes is the fact tiiat 
they are always mingled with dynamic causes. A 
final cause has no objective existence except in its 
result. This result has been directly produced by 
efficient causes. The final cause has only been work- 
ing invisibly behind and through these. Now, uot 
only does a difficulty arise from the fact that a final 



330 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

cause can accomplish itself only through the medium 
of dynamic causes, — another difficulty arises from the 
fact, that when the two work together it is always 
through a relation of subjection on the one side and 
control on the other, which is constantly liable to be 
disturbed. Thus, though we are sure in any case 
that the final cause is present, and is in fact guiding 
the whole process, we may be doubtful, in any special 
stage of the process, whether any particular phenom- 
ena are the results of the final cause, or whether 
they are simply produced by the efficient causes freed, 
for the moment, from the guidance of their superior. 
We often find, indeed, the presence of the final cause 
where we have no conception of the nature of the 
efficient cause. This is the case in regard to nearly 
all the productions of organic nature. Yet we know 
that in all such cases there is an efficient cause, and 
as Schopenhauer well remarks, though he supports 
his remark by unsatisfactory illustrations, our perfect 
knowledge is reached when we are able to give ac- 
count of each. After these general remarks, w T e 
will proceed to consider final causes in their special 
forms. 

In regard to all actions that are the result of mind 
or intelligence, w T e know that there must be a final 
cause. Intelligence is the acting for a final cause, and 
thus every intelligent act must have such an aim. Our 
difficulty arises when we come to determine what was 
the final cause of any particular act or scries of acts. 
In legal investigations this is often very important. If 
a man is accused of any crime, say of murder, or of 
assault, or of incendiarism, it is a very important point 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 331 

to show that he had a motive. If the accused was 
known to bear malice towards the injured party, or if 
he has had reason to bear malice, or if he could have 
sought an opportunity for robbery, such a possible 
final cause gives point to the other circumstances that 
tell against him. Through its influence, facts that 
might otherwise have been passed over assume grave 
importance. Of equal moment with the deduction of 
an act from this possible final cause, is often the in- 
duction of the final cause from the circumstances of 
the act. Thus suspicious circumstances which tend to 
implicate a man in any crime lose their dark shade 
often if they can be explained by any other motive 
than that which the crime would furnish. A skilful 
lawyer has often saved his client by the suggestion of 
some new motive, which might run through the whole 
line of circumstances, that, strung upon a different 
thread, looked so formidable, and give them an en- 
tirely different aspect. Indeed, the skill of an advo- 
cate is shown in hardly anything more than in the 
manner in which he marshals the various parts of his 
testimony, so that they shall be linked together in 
such a manner that they shall of themselves force upon 
the listeners the purpose by which he would explain 
them. Such arrangement of testimony is more pow- 
erful than an argument, for in it the advocate is out of 
sight. There is art, but there is no appearance of art. 
In v.u argument the listener braces himself against 
what he sees to be the object of the speaker. But in 
listening to this skilfully arranged testimony, where 
each point stands out in the relation to the others which 
the advocate wishes, one is like a man who takes a 



332 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

forced card from the hand of a juggler, sure that in 
this there is no trick, for he picked out just the card 
he had himself selected from the pack. Another 
form which the question of final cause takes in legal 
tribunals relates not to the fact of the commission of any 
felonious act, but to the degree of evil which the net 
was meant to accomplish. Suppose the fact of murder 
proved, then comes the question whether it was in- 
tended or not. The law has a rough general maxim 
that decides such questions, other things being equal, 
by the nature of the weapon by which the assault was 
committed. If it was by one that would naturally 
produce death, the man is held accountable for the act. 
If it be one that would not ordinarily produce this 
result, it is not insisted that the man could have fore- 
seen it in this case. Maxims like this are rules, 
rough and rude, which may be convenient in many 
cases, and may furnish a greater approximation to 
truth than could otherwise be reached. It need 
not be urged, however, that such rules should always 
be subsidiary and subordinate to more accurate and 
delicate methods, where these can be emploj-ed. 
Another example of the manner in which a general 
rule, based upon the nature of final cause, is used to 
settle delicate questions of fact, is furnished by 
the science of biblical criticism. It is one of the 
canons of criticism, that in case of any divergence 
between the reading of the oldest manuscripts, other 
things being equal, the preference shall be given to 
the reading that is the most obscure. It is believed 
that as these manuscripts were copied by one and 
another, it was easier for an obscure reading to be 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 333 

replaced by an easy one than the reverse. The dis- 
position to clear up the sacred text would work almost 
insensibly to this end. Thus the first result and ob- 
ject of these critical labors is, contrary to the popular 
impression, not to remove difficulties, but to increase 
them. 

Besides judicial and private judgments of actions, 
and these problems of minute criticism, the larger 
questions of history demand often a similar solution. 
The heroes and great actors of history not only excite 
our curiosity as to the circumstances of their lives, 
but also create an intense interest to know the mo- 
tives which actuated them. When we see the origin 
of great discoveries, the originating of new eras, the 
commencement of epochs of good or evil, we demand 
to know how far the chief actors in such events were 
conscious of the parts they were playing. We wish 
to know how much blame to award to the workers of 
evil, how high honor to the accomplishes of good. 
We can hardly help judging men by the light of their 
achievements. We cannot shut the grand results 
from our own thoughts, nor, in our imagination, from 
the minds of their originators. The two ships that 
the same year brought, the one the first slaves to Vir- 
ginia, the other the Pilgrim Fathers to Massachusetts, 
we can hardly look upon as chartered by persons seek- 
ing merely, or mainly, immediate results. We see the 
one freighted with the shame, the other with the 
glory, of the Continent. We are often disappointed 
\vhen we find that these grand results were not pres- 
ent to the minds of their authors. Our Pilgrim 
Fathers did not seek consciously to found a republic 



334 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of equal religious liberty for all. They sought relig- 
ious liberty for themselves. When we consider this, 
we are tempted to take from them much of the glory 
of the achievement. The fact we are considering 
becomes yet plainer to ns in the history of scientific 
discovery. We find how little the discoverer often 
knew of what he had accomplished ; and how little of 
this he had foreseen . Galvani discovered the galvanic 
power. We approach the act of discovery expecting 
to find a certain preparation and foreknowledge. We 
find the philosopher simply puzzling his head to know 
why the leg of a dead frog should kick so unaccountably 
in his kitchen. Columbus, we say, discovered the 
New World. We are a little disappointed when we 
find that he did not undertake any such discovery ; 
that he even died without the knowledge that the land 
he had found did belong to a new continent. As we 
look more closely, however, at the final cause 
which controlled such events, we incline to pay back 
to such founders and discoverers at least a part, and a 
large part, of the honor which we had taken from 
them. They took the path without knowing indeed 
the grand issues to which it would lead ; yet they 
took it, seeking results similar in kind to those actually 
reached. They were on the path of improvement and 
discovery, and the fact that they did not beforehand 
comprehend its whole length does not take from them 
the honor of choosing this path. Galvani was not 
seeking what we call galvanism. He was seeking a 
knowledge of the forces at work in nature. Columbus 
did not know of a New World, but he did consciously 
make use of the fact of the spherical nature of the 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 335 

world to seek what lay on its other side. The Pil- 
grim Fathers did not seek to found a republic of abso- 
lute religious liberty, but they did seek to found a 
republic in which religious truth should be the ground- 
work of its strength, while to this religious truth thev 
sacrificed all that was dear to them. 

This consideration of final causes, as they actuate 
individuals, leads us to the perception of a certain 
plan, a grand final cause, which is working through 
the events of history, so that an apparently slight 
event proves to be the germ of some vast outgrowth, 
which can only be comprehended after the result. 
Thus we see individuals to be only the instruments in 
this great progress of an organic history. We learn 
also to honor individuals, so far as the final cause 
which actuated them can become one with, and ab- 
sorbed into, the great final cause that is controlling 
the march of history. We find thus in the great men 
of the world a sort of instinct, like that which leads 
the lower animals to prepare for a future of which 
they have no knowledge. The young bird builds its 
nest, knowing nothing of its future brood ; or wings 
its flight across continents and seas, knowing nothing 
of the more genial climate that shall meet it at the 
end. Thus the great minds of the world seem to act 
for some future which is not fully conscious to their 
own thought. 

This brings us to consider the strange manifesta- 
tion of the working of final causes, as we find them in 
the life of the lower creation. That animals reason, 
that is, that they plan actions for a certain result, we 
cannot doubt. A dog seeks warmth and food with no 



336 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



less clear notion of what he is about than that which im 
pels his master to the same ends. Yet we find another 
power present in animal life, most present in the 
lower forms of animal life, which is as unquestion- 
ably the operation of final causation, while yet the 
object of the act is unknown to the creature perform- 
ing it. Thus the 3'oung spider spins his first web. 
Thus do insects seek the fitting locality for the dep- 
osition of their eggs. The moth plans for the food 
of its young, whose nature and whose appetite will 
be so different from its own. Such instinctive acts are 
more difficult to be distinguished from acts of reason- 
ing, when we find that new circumstances are met and 
provided for by them. Thus in Kirby and Spence's 
"Introduction to the Study of Entomology," we are 
told of bumblebees, which carefully propped up 
with wax a piece of comb that had, for the purpose 
of experiment, been placed upon its edge, or small- 
est side, in such a manner that it tottered with the 
movements they made upon it, and was liable to fall. 
These artificial props, which the bees could never have 
needed to make use of in their natural and wild state, 
which perhaps no creature of the class had ever used 
before, were introduced with as much skill and adap- 
tation to their end, as if they had been a part of the 
machinery regularly employed by these insects. 
Schopenhauer gives a good method of understanding 
such phenomena, when he compares instinct to a 
magnetic clairvoyance. " The young spider," he says, 
"feels as if it must spin its web, although it neither 
knows nor understands the object of its work." So 
he relates, among other similar examples, the story of 



mi- 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 337 

a man upon the ocean, who felt of an evening impelled, 
without any reason, not to undress himself, and who 
thus stretched himself in his clothes, boots, and even 
spectacles, upon his bed. In the night the ship took 
tire, and he was one of the few that escaped. He il- 
lustrates this form of instinct further by comparing 
such necessary, though not understood, acts to the 
organic growth of the body. As some creatures de- 
velop claws and teeth or poison for self-defence, so 
do others develop webs or other apparently con- 
scious contrivances to secure their prey. The differ- 
once is less in the nature of the net than in the 
degree of openness or secrecy with which it is per- 
formed. In the one case it is indirect, in the other 
it is direct. A very fine illustration of this view ma} T 
be added to those which he enumerates, .and may, 
perhaps, better than any other, help our imagination. 
It is suggested by the coloring of many mollusks. 
We know that the occupant paints its own shell. It 
spreads the colors upon parts of its own structure, 
and these are then applied to the surface of the shell. 
But though we know this, yet we cannot, in our 
thought, make much distinction between the nature 
of the spots on the shell of a mollusk and those on a 
leopard. Schopenhauer well compares the different 
classes and operations in a hive of bees to the like 
division in any one living body. f? As the liver," lie 
says, " will do nothing else than secrete gall for the 
sake of the digestion, and even exists merely for this 
end, so will the working bee do nothing else than 
collect honey, secrete wax, and build cells for the 
brood of the queen ; the drones will do nothing else 
22 



338 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

than fertilize , the queen nothing but lay eggs. All 
parts thus work merely for the support of the whole, 
which is the only absolute end ; just as is the case in 
the parts of a bodily organism. . . . This common 
result the insects ivill without knowing it, just as 
the organic nature works for final causes. Thus the 
general choice of means is not left to their intelli- 
gence, but only the direct arrangement of them sep- 
arately. But this is the reason wh}^ their actions are 
in no wise mechanical. The un mechanical nature of 
their acts is most clearly seen when one puts ob- 
structions in their way. The caterpillar spins itself a 
nest in leaves, without knowledge of its object, but 
if one disturbs the web it mends it skilfully." Such 
repairing of injury and meeting of unforeseen cases, 
Schopenhauer compares to the vix medicatrix na- 
turae, by which nature repairs the injuries of an or- 
ganic body ; as, for example, she sets a broken bone, 
forming about the extremities which are to be joined 
a ring of bone, a sort of natural splint, to keep them 
in their place until she has united the parts by a 
more regular process. After this is accomplished, 
the external ring is absorbed. The fact in organic 
nature illustrated by the example last used, namely, 
the absorption, or the expulsion, of what has become 
useless, this economy of nature, Schopenhauer uses 
to illustrate the destruction in insect organizations of 
those members that have become useless for the com- 
mon end. Thus, when the drones have fulfilled theii 
function they are killed. When the tropical ants in 
their march come upon a ditch which obstructs thjeir 
progress, the foremost ones are thrust in till theii 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 339 

dead bodies form n bridge over which the others pass. 
A similar case is the pulling off of her own wing's by 
the mother ant, when her home duties demand her 
constant presence. This last is simply the external 
and indirect accomplishment of what nature often 
performs in the interior of an organized body. It 
is like the falling off of the leaves of a flower when 
they are no longer needed. In the one case nature 
performs the work indirectly, through instinct ; in 
the other, she performs it directly, without the in- 
tervention of instinct. But perhaps we can better 
understand the manner in which animals make uso of 
means in order to bring about ends of which they 
know nothing, by reference to the appetites which 
we share with them. Nothing is more directly adapt- 
ed to its end than food is to provide for the growth, 
and supply the waste, of the body. Yet both men 
and animals eat for the most part as their appetites 
prompt at the moment, hardly thinking of the object 
for which the food is taken. Indeed, so far as this 
object is forgotten, does the food best accomplish its 
end. It is so most often with the means by which 
nature renews the human race. In the use of these 
means, perhaps, their result is oftenest forgotten. 
Often it is dreaded. Too often it is wilfully brought 
to naught. By such illustrations we can help our 
thought to comprehend how it is possible for the 
lower animals to work with suuh apparent providence 
for ends of which they can know nothing. 

From the half-consrious working of final causes in 
instinct, we are now led to consider their utterly un- 
conscious working in organized bodies. Here it 



340 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

would be impossible to take a step without a con- 
tinual reference to the final cause. As intellect is by 
its very nature the acting foi an end, so organization 
is by its very nature the existence for an end. The 
best definition of an organized body would be, that it 
is one in which all the parts exist only for the sake 
of the whole. In the study of nature we are almost 
startled by the delicate adaptation of means to ends. 
Perhaps nothing is more striking in this regard than 
the application of the principle of the pulley to enable 
a muscle to act in a direction which without this con- 
trivance could not be reached by muscular action. 
Thus the obliquus superior muscle of the eye turns 
upon itself by a pulley affixed to the frontal bone, and 
moves the eyeball as no muscle, without this arrange- 
ment, could do. This contrivance, if we may so call 
it, is repeated in the digastric, muscle of the throat. 
Further examples, almost equally striking, may be 
found in the synovial membrane and fluid, by which 
all friction is taken from the movements of the joints, 
as we seek to accomplish the same end in our machin- 
ery by means of oil. Indeed, we cannot look at any 
part of any organized body without being struck by 
its relation to the final cause for which it exists. It 
has well been said that what the study of simple dj^- 
namic causation is in the consideration of inorganic 
matter, that is the study of final causation in relation 
to organic nature. 

But though we must in general recognize the pres- 
ence of final causes in the study of vegetable and ani- 
mal life, the question may arise as to the limit of 
these causes. While we can hardly be too strict and 






INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 341 

confident in seeking to explain by this principle the 
relations of an organism to itself, we may hesitate 
and question when we have to consider its relations 
to other bodies. In other words, as has already been 
stated, an organization consists in a certain relation 
between efficient and final causes, and Ave may well 
suppose that this relation should be sometimes dis- 
turbed, and the efficient causes should sometimes 
exert their power without regard to the end to be 
accomplished. We see this in the case of any de- 
formity. A deformity exists when some external 
cause has forced some part of the organic structure 
out of its true relations with the rest. 

It is an interesting question how far the same 
irregularity exists in the uniformities of nature. 
There are general uniformities connecting certain 
vegetables and animals that are otherwise distinct 
from one another. One may have certain peculiari- 
ties for no other reason, apparently, than because 
another has them. It is a question which has a very 
important bearing upon the large theories of physical 
life, how far such similarities exist for the sake of 
uniformity of plan, or how far they are simply the 
result of common efficient causes. In other words, 
can the principle of final cause be applied to those 
parts of an organic structure which have no other use 
than to connect it with other organic structures? 
One of these uniformities is the presence in all verte- 
brate mammals of seven, and only seven, cervical ver- 
tebrae. No matter how long- or how short the neck 
may be, it may be that of a horse, of a giraffe, or of a 
hog, its neck contains seven, and only seven bones. 



342 THE SCIENCE OF THOrGHT. 






The working of the final cause is well seen in the 
adaptation of these seven bones to the uses of each 
animal. We see how well they are fitted, by 
their shape and arrangement, to enable the giraffe 
to obtain his food by browsing, and the swan to 
reach its food beneath the water. The further ques- 
tion is, whether the confining of these bones to 
the number of seven be also the result of a final 
cause, namely, to ally the giraffo and the swan thereby 
to other vertebrate creatures ; or whether this num- 
ber depends upon an efficient cause, that is, exists 
because the present form of the giraffe and that of 
the swan have developed from some different forms 
of animal life which possessed this number of verte- 
bras. We wonder at the fitness of the proboscis of 
an elephant to perform its function. Shall we also 
see in it the working of a final cause whereby it is the 
analosfon of the nose of other animals? Or shall we 
say it is the analogon of the nose, because it is a 
transformed and elongated nose? These questions 
acquire more force when they concern what is useless 
to an animal, but which seems affixed merely to pre- 
serve its relation to a common type. Thus the rudi- 
ments of mammas in male animals subserve no 
purpose. The question is, whether they are added 
simply to preserve the unity of type, or whether be- 
cause the original germ might have assumed the form 
of either sex, but having been made by circumstances 
to assume the one, yet preserves the marks and the 
rudiments of what might have been developed into 
the full form of the other? Another very striking 
example is the fact that in the jaw of the embryonic 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 343 

whale are found the germs of teeth which never be- 
come developed, which germs themselves shortly 
disappear. Can it be that these minute and transient 
germs are introduced, simply to stamp the embryo as 
related to other organized bodies, in which such 
teeth, having a purpose to serve, exist in full and 
enduring shape? In the human form the useless 
motor muscles of the ear suggest similar questions. 
These sometimes movable, yet always needless, ap- 
pendages are the analogon of muscles in other animals 
which serve an important use. Can it be that these 
are simply the artist's stamp on man, to show that 
the same nature that made them made him also? 
When analogous forms of organization tend to become 
actually similar in form or function, the question 
presses itself more strongly, whether it be not an 
active cause rather than a final one that was the oc- 
casion of the similarity in organizations which had 
been before so different. Thus it is said that the 
common snap-dragon and nasturtium tend, under 
certain circumstances, to revert to the more general 
type out of which their peculiar shape was formed, 
or on which it was based. Such reversion — for 
such we cannot help calling it — points to the fact 
that the common structure was not only artistically 
the ideal on which the monstrosities of certain species 
were based, but was actually the material out of which 
they were formed. 

The fact of the common type which binds all or- 
ganic forms into one is among the very grandest 
discoveries and conceptions of modern times. It 
opens to the student of science one of the most 



344 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



elevated subjects of investigation and thought, and 
it has already called out and quickened the genius of 
some most honored in the scientific world. We take 
the same kind of delight in tracing the same type 
through all changes, finding how the strangest and 
most monstrous peculiarities of species and individuals 
are only fresh manifestations of this, that we do in 
following the same theme through all the complicated 
variations of a grand musical composition, only in 
this contemplation of nature we have a more sublime 
result than any single musical work can furnish us, 
for we have the whole world of inanimate things as 
the expression of the varied harmony. This observa- 
tion and this search may be shared in common by 
those whose explanation of the phenomena is most 
opposite. The great fact is that genus, species, and 
individual are never actually one. As we found in 
speaking of logical propositions that they were 
always imperfect, that is, that they affirmed the 
identity of the individual and the universal, which are 
by their very nature not the same, so we find in the 
observation of any species or individual an expression 
of the same imperfection. As the individual has 
certain peculiarities which the type to which he 
belongs cannot explain ; as the fact that John is man 
does not explain the color of his hair, or any special 
modification of shape he may possess ; so, on the other 
hand, the common type shows its presence by marks 
which do not concern the individual life. The whale 
would be as much a whale, — that is, would be as well 
fitted for all the circumstances of its life, — if it had no 
transient germs of teeth in its upper jaw. The 



ud 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 345 

giraffe would browse as comfortable with twelve as 
with seven verticle veitebrae; and this comparison 
could be continued, not only through the examples 
above given, but through the innumerable others 
that the study of comparative anatomy furnishes. It 
is not for logic to determine the cause of this grand 
similarity and variation. It has only to caution the 
explorer where the ground becomes uncertain and 
the support frail. And in obedience to this demand 
we have to draw the line, in the study of final causes, 
between the explaining by final causes the relations 
of the various organs of a body to the perfection and 
continuance of the whole, and the application of the 
same principle to the analogous which in one individ- 
ual, or sex, or species, remind us of others. In the 
first case, the final cause is as reliable as the force of 
gravitation in mechanics ; in the latter, we are ex- 
posed to the misleading of fancy and caprice. In- 
deed, the explanation of every similarity by unity of 
plan, and every possible divergence by variation of ex- 
ecution, approaches the viciousness of a logical circle. 
But, though it is very unsafe to explain the analo- 
gous of the higher with the lower, or of those on the 
same plane with one another, by the doctrine of final 
causation, the clanger is lessened when we find in the 
lower the analogon of the higher. Here we cannot 
fail to detect the influence of the final cause, which, 
through the lower, is working up towards the higher. 
The lower is evidently the type of the higher, by 
whatever power the higher is to be produced. By 
every theory, whether of development or of progres- 
sive creation, the lower must have preceded the higher 



346 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

in time, and thus the structure of the higher could net 
have directly caused any peculiarity of the lower, as 
we might feel at least the possibility of supposing that 
the higher was directly influenced by the pre-existing 
lower. It is, then, in tracing the hints and prophecies 
of the higher in the lower, that we find freer scope for 
the application of the doctrine of final causes to the gen- 
eral study of organized nature. The most universal of 
such facts is the adaptation of the type of the lowest 
organism to take on the highest and most perfect forms. 
The mere fact, that the highest organic forms are con- 
structed on the same plan that runs through the lower, 
does not, as we have seen, justify us in explaining this 
resemblance by the doctrine of final causes. It is at 
least theoretically possible that the lower, pre-existing, 
were the efficient cause of this similarity in the higher ; 
and the question, which explanation shall be adopted, 
can only be solved by the most careful and prolonged 
scientific study, if indeed it is ever fully settled ; but 
when we find the lower taking on so readily and so 
perfectly higher and ever higher perfection, we 
feel authorized in affirming some previous adaptation 
to this change. We may illustrate this by an exam- 
ple about which there is no difference of opinion. 
We should not explain by final cause the fact that the 
divisions of any fruit correspond to those of the flower, 
or that the structure of the flower sus^ests that of the 

no 

leaf; while we should explain by final cause the adap- 
tation of the earlier forms to put on the peculiarities 
of the later. It cannot be by chance that, in the long 
run, in the geologic history of the world, the changes 
of organization have been, on the whole, in the direc- 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 847 

tion of greater perfection. The formation of organs, 
and the complication of powers, imply the previous 
adaptation to assume these organs and powers. As 
in casting dice, if certain numbers should appear con- 
stantly more often than their proper average, however 
slight this excess might be, we should say that it is not 
by chance, but that the dice were loaded ; so when we 
see every convulsion of the earth, whether slow or 
sudden, through the entire reach of geologic history, 
resulting, on the whole, in more and more perfect 
forms, we have to admit that this cannot be by chance, 
but that nature herself plays with loaded dice. And 
if we go back behind the existence of organic forms, 
if we survey the scattered particles of the nebulous 
matter out of which the worlds were shaped, and then 
see this, as it becomes more and more compact, 
assuming organic, animal, intellectual, and spiritual 
forms, we must, at the very least, assume some special 
adaptation for this result. To explain it by chance 
would be millions and millions of times more absurd 
than to explain by chance the fact that the confused con- 
tents of a box which contains a boy's dissected map or 
picture, the longer they are worked over by a person of 
any skill, fit together more and more perfectly, until 
at last they form a symmetrical whole, or than it would 
be to explain by chance the production of a bird from 
an egg. And in such cases we have no intermediate 
term between chances and final causes. We may, in- 
deed, very properly adopt Herbert Spencer's ingenious 
generalization, and explain the course of development 
by the fact that every cause multiplies effects, while, 
on the other hand, effects tend to become definite and 



348 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

regular. This furnishes a superficial explanation for 
the phenomena under consideration ; but it no more 
fully accounts for them than it would account for the 
harmony which results from the playing of a band of 
music, to say that the difference of tones is caused bj 
the fact that each plays on a separate instrument, an< 
the harmony of tbem by the fact that musical wave; 
tend to assume regular pulsations. All this is true 
The slight discords of music become lost at a distance 
because the irregular pulsations are absorbed into the 
regular ; but this would not take us a jstep towards 
explaining the magnificent music of a trained band. 
The instruments must have been adapted and used for 
this special end. So the striking and valuable gen- 
eralization of Spencer, just referred to, does not take 
us a step towards explaining the grand process of the 
world's development. You may take a stone and 
pound it and grind it, and heat it and cool it ; you 
may apply whatever forces you will to it, and each of 
these forces may multiply its effects ad infinitum^ 
but you can never thereby get a bit of moss out of it. 
For a regular process of organic growth is needed 
material specially adapted for this. The sun, and 
the air, and the earth together, bring out buds and 
leaves and blossoms upon the rose-bush, — because it is 
a rose-bush. Let the theory of development be per- 
fected as it will, and it becomes more and more 
evident that there must have been an impulse at the 
beginning towards precisely this result, — an adapta- 
tion for which we have no other, and could have no 
simpler, word than to name it teleological, or, what is 
the same thing, to ascribe it to final causation. 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 349 

This result becomes more obvious when we consider 
the fact that man, who is the conclusion of the animal 
series, is also the completion and fulfilment of it. 
The animal form is capable of a symmetry and a beauty, 
of a blending of the most perfect unity with the 
greatest variety, which it does not accomplish except 
in man. Other arrangements of the organic structure 
would have served as well the purposes of the lower 
animals, but not those of man. It could not be by 
chance that the animal form should assume a certain 
perfection in the higher quadrupeds, and then, losing 
this among the quadrumaua, should assume a still 
more perfect one in man. This is impossible on any 
basis of chance, because the actual close of the 
series of animal life might have taken myriads of 
forms. That it should take precisely the form which 
is the most perfect that the given bones and muscles 
could by any guess or calculation reach, must be be- 
cause this was precisely the result for which they were 
fitted, and to which they were tending. Indeed, 
as we look back upon the different forms of animal 
life, and compare them with man, w 7 e seem to see a 
process of masquerading, which at last comes to an 
end. It was the human form that was contorted and 
distorted in all these lower shapes. It w r as this that 
swam with the fish, that crept with the beast, that cut 
all comical grimaces with the monkey, and that finally 
sprang erect and well proportioned in man. All that 
was needed was a little straightening here, and pushing 
back there, to make the human form out of the 
beastly. Indeed, after such a view as this, one can no 
more doubt that man is the teleolo^ical, or organic 



350 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

close of the animal creation, than that he is the actual 
close, and thus the final cause, of the various embry- 
onic changes that precede his independent personal 
existence. 

It has been said that there is in all this no possible 
term between chances and final causes. Chance is 
the relation of the results of independent causes to 
one another. Final causation is the working to^eth- 
er of forces specially adapted to a common end. No 
expression can occupy a middle position between 
these ; and a slight mathematical calculation will 
show the possibility or the impossibility of chance in 
the results above named. Take all the forces that are 
active on the earth, on the one side, with all their pos- 
sible relations and complications ; and^ on the other, 
take the regular course of organic life, general and 
special, its, on the whole, regular improvement, ac- 
cording to any theory, whether of development or cre- 
ation, and its absolutely symmetrical close, and it will 
be seen that the efficient causes, though they often 
have their free and unfettered sweep, yet, on the 
whole, were guided and controlled by a final cause. 
This shows the sense in which man may be spoken 
of as the final cause of creation. "We see not all 
things put under him," but we do see him the organic 
completion of all the perfection of organic life upon 
the earth. 

It was stated above that logic has not to decide 
between the development theory and that of special 
creation ;,yet in what has been said the development 
theory may seem to have been sometimes assumed. 
This has been done for two reasons. The first is, 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 351 

that under the creative theory it was useless to dis- 
cuss the existence of final causes. The theory as- 
sumes them. It was important to show that the 
development theory is also necessarily bound to them. 
The second reason is because the terms of the de- 
velopment theory are better adapted to scientific use. 
Science abhors a break. It is, in fact, her destruc- 
tion ; and the theory of special creation implies a 
succession of breaks, of those leaps, which, accord- 
ing to science, nature never makes. Thus, whatever 
be the issue of this controvers} r , science must long 
continue to speak and think under the forms of the 
development theory. The defenders of this theory 
themselves admit the improbability of its ever meet- 
ing with inductive proof. What we know absolutely 
is, that efficient causes and final causes have been work- 
ing together ; the difficulty is to form a conception of 
the method of their connection. Either dilemma is 
sufficiently difficult to conceive. Herbert Spencer per- 
tinently asks whether the believer in special creation 
can imagine any way in which this could have taken 
place ; whether, for instance, creatures were made in 
the air and then put upon the earth, or whether they 
were made in the earth and stru^lecl out, as Milton 

CO ' 

pictures the half- formed lion. "The belief in special 
creation of separate classes of living things," he says, 
"could not exist, if men would try to look at the mat- 
ter specially and in detail, in the way above suggest- 
ed." But, on the other hand, Herbert Spencer, iti 
the first number of his "First Principles," has shown 
the impossibility of conceiving of a self-developing 
world, and the objections there urged would apply 



352 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to the conception of such self-development at every 
stage of its process. It is impossible to imagine the 
lowest plant developing itself, without germ, in a 
sphere that has but recently been a mass of fire. 
And it is equally impossible to imagine that lowly 
plant becoming, by any process of self-development 
alone, an elephant or a man. If the development 
theory is in any sense true, the earth itself must have 
been a seed, germinant with all the forms of life that 
were to spring from it, and specially adapted for 
their production ; and this is the same as to say that 
final causes have at every step presided over efficient 
causes. From the position of its defenders, such as 
Lyell and Huxley, we may take it for granted, as was 
intimated above, that it will be long at least before 
this theory of development can be by strict induction 
proved, or disproved. Yet its language must, as was 
stated above, be long, if not always, the language of 
science, for it is her business to explain all phenome- 
na, so far as possible, by their efficient causes ; and 
even if the doctrine of special creation be true, the 
different orders of onranic life, beinsr created accord- 
ing to one plan, must stand in relations which can be 
expressed most satisfactorily in the language of this 
theory. There has been an ideal if not a real devel- 
opment. But, on the other hand, religion can still, 
and must still, use the language of the theory of 
special creation. It is her concern to emphasize the 
final cause ; and man is no less a creation if made 
out of the ape, or the ape if made out of a palm-tree, 
than if each had been made out of the dust of the 
eartn, just as it would require the same creative ge- 



INDUCTION OF FINAL CAUSES. 353 

nius to make a magnificent statue out of a piece of 
marble, which had been already cnt into some infe- 
rior form, as to make one out of a block fresh from 
the quarry. 

From what has been said, it will be seen that effi- 
cient, or dynamic, and final causes are not at variance, 
but only represent different sides of the same event. 
If it be admitted that the final cause has for its con- 
stant companion the efficient cause, and, on the other 
hand, that the efficient cause is on the whole 
guided by the final cause, then there can be no 
possible strife between science on the one side, and 
theology upon the other. Each, it is true, will use its 
special language, yet each will continually adopt more 
and more of the material of the other into itself. 
Science will make the final cause more and more 
the object of its induction, as .the development 
theory already in substance does ; while theology will 
find more and more material for wonder and admira- 
tion, as it sees how the final cause continually uses 
the efficient causes, that seem acting with independent 
freedom, for its own end. 

From the above, it will be seen that final causes 
rest upon an induction as rigid as the other results of 
science, only such induction must always remain in a 
certain sense general, never descending to the minute 
specifications that characterize the induction of 
merely dynamic causes. The canon for such organic 
induction, or the induction of final causes, is, that 
when various distinct efficient causes unite repeatedly 
in any one harmonious and perfect result, this must be 
held to be their final cause, and the greater the varietv 

23 



354 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



of these forces and the greater the frequency of their 
harmonious result, the more perfect is the induction. 
We have already applied this canon in substance to 
the organic structure of the world. We can apply 
it also to other relations. Thus, for example, in a 
former part of this work, we found that beauty is the 
free manifestation, or the ideal manifestation, of any 
and all of the forms of nature or life ; that is, 
whether it be sound, or color, or form, or life, 
when it freely manifests itself according to its own 
laws and its own nature, we receive from it the pecu- 
liar form of enjoyment that we call the perception of 
beauty. Now, if all these forms of nature when they 
reach their perfection are beautiful, what is deformed 
or unsightly being only the checking, or the restrain- 
ing, or the interference with the laws of any one of 
these forms, then beauty is one of the final causes in 
the existence of each one of these elements. On the 
other hand, the presence of the unsightly and the 
deformed would not, in itself, imply any final cause, 
however much they may be multiplied. For disturb- 
ance and interference may be over and over again the 
result of chance, while a repeated and complicated 
harmony cannot be. 

The same induction may be applied to the history 
of man. Indeed, such application is only a continu- 
ance of the process commenced already in the study 
of the creation of organic forms. Whatever harmo- 
nious result is produced more and more completely 
by all the changes and convulsions of history, that we 
may set down to be one of the final causes of history. 
If, for instance, the rig lv ;s and the power of the people 



CONCLUSION OF INDUCTION. 355 

have, on the whole, and in the long run, been more 
and more established by the revolutions and convul- 
sions of history, we may assume these to be one of 
the final causes and ends of history. 



CONCLUSION OF INDUCTION. 

We have thus passed over the various forms of in- 
ductive reasoning, namely, static, dynamic, and 
organic ; the dynamic including under itself the empir- 
ical and the rational. It is evident that our rea- 
soning in common life can, by the -nature of things, 
rarely reach scientific certainty. Neither is such cer- 
tainty necessary for belief. Of all our knowledge, 
comparatively little rests upon a perfectly scientific 
basis, yet it is none the less knowledge. Even in 
cases at law, the strictness of scientific proof is in gen- 
eral unattainable, the jury having only to make up their 
minds to the result, so far that they have not a rea- 
sonable doubt of its truth. While, if the case be a crim- 
inal one, even this degree of certainty is only required 
for conviction. Yet, in all these cases, the method of 
reasoning is the same that has been indicated in the 
methods above described. The difference arises from 
the fact that, in common life, there may not be mate- 
rial for a rigorous induction, or that it is not considered 
worth while to pursue the process to its completion, 
and thus it is allowed, after a few steps, to make a leap 
to the result. Just when the point may be considered 
as reached, from which this leap may be made with 
sufficient confidence for practical purposes, cannot of 



356 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



course be arbitrarily defined. It will vary with diflei 
ent minds. The weak or untrained will either 
assume the result almost at the first step, while the 
strong or disciplined will, according to their strength 
or discipline, have almost an intuitive perception of 
the line where conjecture becomes practical certainty, 
and will keep back its assent till that point is reached ; 
or else the former class will be unaffected by proof to 
which the second will give absolute confidence. The 
difference is, in a word, that the one class know neither 
when to believe or when to disbelieve, while the second 
has almost an instinctive perception of the points at 
which possibility becomes probability, and at which 
probability becomes certainty. One very important 
element, perhaps the most important element, in this 
determination is what has been called the inductive 
weight of evidence.* By this is meant the manner in 
which any proof affects us, so far as this depends 
upon our experience of the facts or laws in the depart- 
ment from which the proof is taken. For instance, 
what a man tells us incidentally, and without reference 
to his own interest, we take for granted to be true, so 
far as the matter could have come within the range of 
his knowledge. What a man tells us for the sake of 
benefiting himself^ Ave subject to a further process of 
proof. The old fable of the spelling-books, entitled 
" The Unjust Judge," could be better used as an exam- 
ple of this logical fact than for the moral which is 
usually attached to it. A lawyer will be contented in 
the street with a simple answer to a simple question. 
In the court room he would subject the same state- 

* See "N. A. Review "for October, 1864, p. 600. 



. 



THIRD FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 357 

ment, if made from a " witness stand," to a severe and 
searching examination. He knows he is less likely to 
be deceived in the one case than in the other. So a sin- 
gle experiment in one department of science may satisfy 
one who is an adept in this science, simply because he 
knows what is the common relation of such experi- 
ments to the truth. For this reason, when the proofs 
of scientific facts are laid before us, we have often to 
trust to the scientific estimate of them, rather thau to 
our own, simply because we are not used to weighing 
that sort of proof. This, for instance, is the reason 
why the great arguments of geology have had but little 
effect upon the general thoughts and beliefs of men. 
It will thus be seen that the point where any pro- 
cess of induction may be left incomplete, while we 
accept at once the full result, cannot be laid down with 
any abstract and a priori definiteness. It is a sort 
of instinct, or intuition, which is the result of one's 
general habits of thought and of one's experience in 
the field under consideration. The methods, how- 
ever, are, in all cases, whether complete or incomplete, 
whether popular or scientific, the same, and thus the 
study of the nature and laws of induction, in connec- 
tion with the practical experience of their use, furnishes 
the only possible preparation for this purpose. 

THIRD FORM OF SYLLOGISM. 
IDENTIFICATION. 

In the often-repeated syllogism, " All men are mor- 
tal ; John is man, therefore John is mortal," as we 
have already seen, each proposition rests upon a dis- 



358 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

tinct syllogistic basis. The conclusion rests upon 
the syllogism of the first form which was just given. 
The major premise rests upon a syllogism of the 
second form, which we have just studied under the 
name of induction. The minor premise rests upon 
a syllogism of the third form, which we have now to 
consider. In the syllogism of the first form the in- 
dividual and the universal are united by means of the 
particular. In that of the second the particular is 
united to the universal by means of the individual. 
Because John is man, we know that he is mortal, and 
man we know is mortal, because all individuals whose 
lives have reached a certain term, or if prolonged 
would have reached it, have been mortal. The third 
point is, how do we know that John is man ? To 
answer this question we consider the general qualities 
which pertain to humanity, and inquire whether this 
individual possesses them or not. In other words, 
in the third form of the syllogism the individual is 
united to the particular by means of the universal. 
Its symbol will therefore be, 

p u I. 

That this result may be reached it is necessary, 
first, to know what qualities do belong to the par- 
ticular class of objects under consideration, and, 
secondly, to determine which of these are essential, 
and which can be omitted without destroying the 
claim of the individual to be ranked in this particular 
class ; or how many of them may be omitted, and how 
many must be retained for this end. In scientific 
classification it is a convenience which is always 



IDENTIFICATION. 359 

sought, to have some particular mark by which every 
class of bodies may be recognized. Thus in zoology 
the structure of the teeth or the claws sometimes 
furnishes such tests. In botany, — at least in the 
artificial system, — the number of stamens and pistils 
furnishes like convenient methods of distinction. Yet 
snch arbitrary marks go but a little way. All other 
parts of an animal or plant belong also to its generic 
or specific nature. One skilled will rest as much 
upon one part as upon another. In fact, our recog- 
nition depends in general upon groups of peculiarities 
of which only a part is always present. Few objects 
fully conform to their scientific description. One 
may study in books generic and specific differences 
all his life, and yet be puzzled to recognize an object 
belonging to the genera and species with which he 
has been busied. Any one may, for instance, study 
the classification of clouds, even by the aid of plates. 
He may be fluent with cirrus and cumulus, cirro- 
cumulus and the rest, yet when he begins to study 
the heavens he finds that the clouds do not put on 
the fixed forms he had expected. He finds himself 
in a maze of bewilderment. But after his sight has 
been familiarized, and he has been taught to distin- 
guish the ideal from among all its actual variations, 
he recognizes each type of cloud with half a glance. 
This is also very well illustrated in the experience of 
the medical student. He studies his books, and listens 
to his lectures, is ready at examinations, and thinks 
himself familiar with all forms of disease. In his 
imagination he administers ideal remedies to ideal 
diseases with marvellous success. But he finds, on 



3 GO THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

his first experience, that his patients will not be sick 
quite in the regular way, or that what looked so clear 
on pape* is not quite so obvious in the sick-chamber. 
A student reported to the physician with whom he 
was pursuing his profession that he had met a strange 
case, which completely puzzled him. His account 
did not convey much to the doctor, who started with 
him to visit this wonderful case. Before they were 
fairly in the room the doctor nudged his student and 
whispered "small-pox." The student w T as astonished 
at this, which seemed almost supernatural insight, 
and afterwards asked the physician how he could tell 
without a glance the nature of the disease. " It was 
the smell," said the doctor; the smell, — that was 
something that neither book nor lecturer could de- 
scribe. Thus it is that the physician learns to judge 
by look, by touch, by expression, by indications al- 
most innumerable, the nature and the event of any 
disease. He would often be puzzled to explain to 
another how it is done. An expression of the face 
is not to be described. When he is puzzled he in- 
deed recalls the descriptions in his books, he studies 
and investigates. He seeks the marks of this disease 
and of that, and his special, and as we may call them 
artificial, tests are available, because he is familiar with 
the various aspects of disease ; that is, because he is 
at home in the world of which they treat. This ex- 
ample from the medical profession illustrates what is 
true of all professions and studies. Henry Ward 
Beecher relates that he once inquired the name of a 
plant. The person of whom he made the inquiry 
thought he was feigning ignorance, and exclaimed, 



IDENTIFICATION. 361 

" Why, I first became familiar with that plant through 
what you wrote about it." — "True," said Beecher, 
" I wrote about it, but had never seen it." He was 
familiar with it in books, but did not for that reason 
recognize it when he saw it. The practical farmer 
does well to use books ; the mere "book-farmer" will 
fail. In morals it is one thing to paint evil in the 
abstract, and another to recognize it when it is really 
present in some unexpected form. Who could tell 
even how he recognizes a friend in the street. It is 
not by this or that. It is a glance at the tout ensemble 
which decides. Books of particular sciences or 
studies give, as far as possible, tests of identification 
in their several departments. A work of logic can- 
not give any abstract or summary of these. It can 
only say that for recognition is needed, for the most 
part, experience. Thus logic has gone as far as it is 
possible for it to go. With the first two syllogisms 
it may be all-sufficient. With his two premises the 
thinker may sit in his study and draw a conclusion 
by logical laws in regard to matters of which he has 
otherwise no knowledge. The statistician may, by 
means of collated facts, reach, through the method of 
the syllogism of the second form, accurate results in 
regard to matters utterly foreign to him. But for 
recognition of real objects according to the syllogism 
of the third form, logic can help the student little. 
She can only lead him back to the real life from 
which she at first called him, and bid him train his 
senses, and accustom himself to the most minute 
familiarity with the objects he would study. The 



362 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

science of logical forms thus reaches its own self-ap- 
pointed conclusion. 

It may be farther remarked that the propriety of 
the present arrangement of syllogisms, by which the 
second and third have changed places, here becomes 
obvious. The first form is that of abstract deduction. 
The second is that of comparison. The scattered 
objects of the world are taken in all their diversity, 
and arranged over against each other. The third 
brings us to concrete individuality, and thus appro- 
priately forms the climax and the close of the series. 
Moreover in the third form deduction and induction 
are combined in equal proportions. The observer 
reasons down from pre-established data, and up from 
the peculiarities of the object before him. Pie neither 
expects to add to his general knowledge, nor to dis- 
cover any new fact or property in regard to this 
object. He simply asks, Is this what I have seen 
described? or, Does this possess the marks which 
are those set down to such a species or genus? The 
attempt is merely to make the two cover each other. 
Thus, as was just remarked, deduction and induction 
are in absolute equilibrium. This illustrates afresh 
the concreteness of the third form of syllogism, 
which thus reconciles and combines the two others. 
Thus, from a new point of view, we see that its true 
position is at the close of the series. 

CONCLUSION OF SYLLOGISMS. 

From the point of view which we have now 
reached, we can look back upon the three forms of 
(he syllogism taken as a whole, and see the truth of 



CONCLUSION OF LOGICAL FORMS. 363 

what was stated at the beginning of our study of them, 
namely, that these three forms -exhaust the possible 
relations of thought, and make a complete and organic 
whole. We saw at first that the universal, the par- 
ticular, and the individual could be related to one 
another only in the three ways which are expressed 
by these syllogisms. We have seen that these three 
forms of thought, deduction, induction, and identifi- 
cation, are the only ones possible to us. Further we 
have seen that these are needed, each by the other. 
No one of them can stand alone. That is a poor de- 
duction, which can verify itself by no induction ; that 
is a poor induction that cannot by any deduction find 
itself connected with some known law or principle ; 
which, in other words, cannot justify itself by an a 
priori argument, as well as prove itself by a pos- 
teriori evidence ; while that deduction and induc- 
tion are both practically barren and vague, which are 
not united by identification to the objects of which 
they treat. Thus, by the method of division and 
organization, the syllogism becomes instead of an 
abstract, arbitrary, and formless thing, standing out- 
side of our actual thought and experience, the simple, 
universal, and beautifully organic form which our 
thought assumes by its own nature. 

CONCLUSION OF LOGICAL FORMS. 

We have thus passed in review all the forms of 
thought. We have been rather witnesses of a pro- 
cess of vital development, than imposers of outward 
and arbitrary rules. We have seen the two ele- 
ments, which in the term exist in simple unity, sep- 



364 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

arate from each other, and stand over against one 
another in the proposition, and finally, in the syllo- 
gism, become united by the mediation of an interme- 
diate element common to both, and thus form a 
union, organic and concrete, instead of the simple 
and abstract one with which we started. We have 
seen, further, the syllogism itself pass from the form 
of deduction, which, abstract at starting, becomes 
through its inevitable antinomies, more and more so 
the longer it is followed, to that of induction, where 
we have the scattered materials to be collected and 
compared, and finally reach its natural conclusion in 
that of identification, where we have the most concrete 
individuality. We have now to see, so far as it is 
possible at a hasty glance, the relation which this 
world of thought stands in to the world of things. 
This is an important question, for on it depends the 
answer to another question, namely, whether our 
reasoning is merely a process which whirls itself on 
in the brain without reference or relation to other 
things, or whether it is the very essence and abstract 
of the world. All that we shall have space to do 
here, is to point out by a few illustrations the fact, 
that the relations of thought, which we have been 
considering, are the same as those which exist in the 
world itself. 

We need not go back to the fact that the relations 
of universal, particular, and individual were at first 
developed and abstracted from the relations of the 
objects about us. We have now to ask how the log- 
ical formularies which we have passed under review 
correspond to these objective relations. It need 



CONCLUSION OF LOGICAL FORMS. 365 

hardly be remarked that this discussion cannot be 
understood or appreciated, except by those to whom 
the results of the examination we have just compared 
are familiar. 

And first, the term with its elements, one the uni- 
versal and the other the particularizing or the individ- 
ualizing one, is the expression of all objective life. 
Every object consists of these two elements. Fur- 
ther, as the accent, or emphasis, of logical terms rep- 
resents the negative element, by which all other and 
more general application of the word is excluded, 
and it is by this manifestation of force shut up to its 
special and narrow significance ; so does the same 
force represent the negative energy by which each 
individual affirms its own separate nature by repell- 
ing all foreign and encroaching influences. Thus this 
stress of accent symbolizes all the violence of the 
world, that struggle for existence which is the uni- 
versal tragedy of life. This is no more marked in 
vegetable life than it is in the simple and uncom- 
pounded term, but becomes prominent in the animal 
and moral creation as it does in the compound term. 
The strife of animal with animal, of man with man, 
of nation with nation, is simply the rightful or wrong- 
ful, natural or unnatural, affirmation of itself by 
each. The plant affirms itself, indeed ; but simply by 
the fact of its own existence. It does not b}' vio- 
lence repel aggression or maintain itself. It is an 
unaccented individuality, like that of the uncom- 
pounded and original term. 

As the term with its two elements corresponds to 
the objects about us, each taken as complete, so the 



366 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

proposition corresponds to the great process of 
growth and development. In the proposition the 
individual and the universal are visibly brought to- 
gether ; so, in the process of growth and develop- 
ment, an object assumes qualities that belong to 
it, though it had not before possessed them. Thus, it 
is the nature of the rose to bear flowers, though iu 
the early season, and in the early period of its exist- 
ence, it has none. In the process of its growth it 
becomes clothed with the beauty that belongs to it. 
And further, as the logical proposition involves a cer- 
tain inconsistency, because the individual is not the 
universal, and never can be in spite of its affirmation, 
so all growth is the expression of this same inconsis- 
tency. The thing is not actually what it is by nature 
and destiny. Its growth is the striving to fulfil its 
nature, to become one with itself, to make the indi- 
vidual harmonize with the universal. But it can 
never become absolutely the universal. The genus 
is perfectly represented in all its fulness and variety 
neither by the species nor the individual. Thus it 
gives way and perishes, while the genus embodies it- 
self in new forms. In history we have at all points 
this same inconsistency, which is the power of its prog- 
ress. History, in its broadest sense, is the striving 
though constantly with only partial success to express 
the infinite in the terms of the finite. Philosophy and 
theology consciously strive to do this, while institu- 
tions and earnest individual life are less consciously 
attempting the same reconciliation. Thus the ideal 
proposition, or, in other words, the abstract formula of 
the logical proposition, namely, the individual is the 



CONCLUSION OF LOGICAL FORMS. 367 

universal, corresponds to this universal fact in the 
outward world. 

The mediation between these terms which the syl- 
logism accomplishes is no less truly the representative 
of the organic life of the world. To say that a tree 
grows according to the law of the syllogism would 
seem at first glance utterly absurd. Yet it is none the 
less true that the threefold relation of universal, par- 
ticular, and individual, which constitutes the essential 
nature of the syllogism, is embodied in all organic 
life. Thus, take for example a tree, and, in whatever 
aspect we consider it, we find this to be true. Thus 
we may consider the root and trunk as the universal, 
since all spring from them. The parting branches 
form the particular, — the separate leaves, the individ- 
ual, — elements of it. Now, each of these may be in 
turn regarded as the middle term by which the two 
others are bound together. The branches evidently 
connect the leaves with the root. Yet the leaves just 
as much connect the root with the branches, for, if they 
were constantly stripped off, the vital connection be- 
tween branch and root would cease, and the tree 
would die. At the same time, the root also binds 
leaves and branches together. Cut off the root, and 
the leaves will fall of themselves. Thus, as in the 
syllogism, each becomes in turn the mean by which 
the others are connected, and only when each fulfils 
this function is the work complete. We may take 
another view, and consider the seed as the abstract 
universal, containing the possibility of all that the tree 
is to become. The opening cotyledons, the constantly 
parting branches t may represent the particular, while 



368 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the plant itself, in its organic unity, is the concrete 
individual. Here, also, each only exists through the 
medium of the other. The plant may be regarded 
as existing by means of the branches and leaves. 
They, on the other hand, exist only in and through the 
plant ; and both reach their united growth only through 
the seed. Or yet again, we may regard the plant in its 
relation to species and genus, and here we should meet 
the same result. The individual is connected with 
the genus through the species; yet, without the indi- 
vidual, genus and species would perish together ; and, 
further, species and individuals both exist in and 
through the genus. These examples may show how 
the syllogistic forms are the abstract of all organic 
relation. 

We may illustrate this in a broader manner, by 
reference to the large theories of growth and prog- 
ress already spoken of in this work, as found in the 
works of two writers who stand in a sort of polar an- 
tagonism to each other, namely, Hegel, and Herbert 
Spencer. The formula according to which Hegel 
ranges all progress, whether in thought or life, is 
based upon the relations which underlie the syllogism. 
Abstract unity, division, and finally a concrete unity, 
in which the divided elements find themselves re- 
united into a fuller and more perfect union, — these are 
the stages of all organic or historic progress. Her- 
bert Spencer approached the same problem from the 
opposite direction, namely, from pure induction, and 
reaches a very similar formula. Progress is from 
the "homogeneous, through the heterogeneous," while 
the heterogeneous assume a certain definiteness and 



CONCLUSION OF LOGICAL FORMS. 369 

regularity which harmonize and unite them. Thus 
we have practically the same result reached from these 
two opposite directions of deduction and induction. 
Hegel starts from the laws of thought, as embodied 
in the syllogism. Herbert Spencer starts from the 
observed facts of life and of history. Each wrought 
without reference to the other. It was like tunnelling 
a mountain from different* sides. The fact that they 
meet midway is one of the most remarkable in the 
history of thought. It shows that the forms of 
thought and those of the objective world are one, 
and that thus our logical forms are rut arbitrary and 
artificial, but that we may follow them confidently, 
knowing the}^ are the same which rule in the universe 
of things. 

24 



THIRD BOOK. 



THE PROBLEMS AND LIMITS 



THOUGHT 



THE PROBLEMS AND LIMITS OF 
THOUGHT. 



In the first part of this work we considered thought 
in its abstract relations. In the second, we saw it 
divide itself into its essential forms. We have now 
to consider it as a concrete whole, to see the general 
nature of the problems which it has to solve, the end 
after which it strives, and the limits within which it 
is by its nature enclosed. In this investigation, we 
shall have, of course, often to fall back on what has 
been already stated ; we shall have to bring together 
what in the earlier part of the work met us in sepa- 
rated elements ; and though this part of our study will 
be pursued so far as possible independently of formal 
and merely scientific distinctions, }^et it will neces- 
sarily be based upon these, and its general division 
will fall in with the division of the different syllogistic 
forms. In accordance with this necessity, the gen- 
eral questions will divide themselves into the prob- 
lems of philosophy, of science, and of life. 

THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
A. — SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 

The first question that meets the thinker, the first 
logically though not always the first in time, is, how 

373 



374 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

to get beyond the limits of himself. He finds that aH 
his sensations, all his perceptions, all his thoughts, 
are simply various forms of his own consciousness. 
He sees further that all possible experience and 
thought are liable to the same fatal limitation. He 
cannot rest in the idea that all the forms of this 
crowded and diversified world, all the sublime objects 
of his contemplation, are merely dreams and fantasies. 
The great problem, then, is how to pass from the 
purely subjective to the objective, how to secure a 
footing in the external world. 

In the general introduction of this work it was 
shown that we cannot help believing in the reality of 
the external universe, and this necessity was analyzed 
into its two forms, namely, that of self-preservation 
and that of the active impulses, the one being nega- 
tive and the other positive. It was there shown, also, 
by abstract and general reasoning, that the real being 
outside of us and the thought within us were only the 
opposite sides of the same thing, that they were at 
heart identical, and thus that in thought we find the 
reality we seek. In the course of the work this 
necessity and this relationship have been followed 
into a more complete development. We have found 
that the fundamental truth, which underlies all the 
activities of the mind beyond that of mere sensation, 
is the unity and organic completeness of the universe. 
This, as we saw, though brought into consciousness 
and confirmed by experience, yet constantly outruns 
experience, and thus shows that it rests upon a basis 
which is not that of experience. The simplest form 
of this is the instinct of genera lization. It is the 



SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 375 

simple good faith with which we begin our acquaint- 
ance with the world, the good faith in which we put 
confidence in our own instincts. We have here the 
trunk from which springs that faith in the outward 
world which we have before seen to be a necessity of 
our nature. The world within us and the world 
without us are parts of the same whole, and thus 
must be related to one another. They must be at 
heart the same. Thus, by the same principle which 
gives us authority to make the slightest generalization 
which goes beyond the enumerated facts, we are au- 
thorized to assume that the necessary forms of our 
thought have some relation, definite and real, to the 
forms of existence outside of us. Kant adopted the 
principle directly antagonistic to this. If he found 
time, or space, or the organized completeness of the 
world to be a necessary form according to which we 
could not help thinking, he took it for granted that it 
could have no objective reality. Or, rather, his dictum 
varies in different departments of his work and sub- 
ject. Time and space, he judges, must be purely 
subjective. In regard to the objects of the pure rea- 
son, such as God and immortality, he judges that we 
cannot through the reason prove them to be true, 
though their truth may be reached in other ways. 
From Avhat has been said, it will be seen that the fact 
that any form, relation, or object is essential to our 
thought must be taken as a proof that it has some 
answering reality in the outer world. 

We have now to inquire what is the relation of this 
reality to our thought, and at what point in our 
thought we may rest assured of the most complete 



376 THE SdENCE OF THOUGHT. 

certainty in regard to it. There are in this relation 
of our thought to the outside world two opposite ten- 
dencies. As we leave actual sensation we leave one 
form of certainty, and, if our thought be correct, 
we approach another. The greatest confidence that 
there is something external corresponding to our 
thought exists at the point of perception ; yet pre- 
cisely at this point there is the greatest divergence 
between the subjective and objective. Redness, blue- 
ness, brightness, heat, cold, — these, like pain and 
pleasure, are sensations of our own. They corre- 
spond indeed to something outside of us ; that is, 
there is always the same or a similar cause of each 
of these sensations, and thus the sensation may be 
taken as the sign of this reality. But beyond this 
bare existence we cannot conceive any necessary re- 
lation between this external reality and any particu- 
lar sensation. As, however, we go further from 
these mere sensations, we reach relations which are 
larger and more general. We reach abstract forms, 
pure relations, which can have the same application 
to things as to thoughts. Thus the further we 
go from mere sensation, the more confident we 
may be of the absolute and objective reality of 
our result, provided the process be correct. This 
provision shows the presence of a danger that in- 
creases the further we withdraw ourselves from mere 
sensation. This danger arises from the possibility 
of mistake in our reasoning upon our perceptions. 
This reasoning, of course, will involve the errors of 
perception and add to these its own. Each step in 
thought thus is exposed not merely to its own possi- 



SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 377 

ble error, but has to bear the burden of all preceding 
errors. Thus the longer a train of thought is, the 
more is it exposed to mistake. It is from such rea- 
soning as this, that Herbert Spencer reaches the po- 
sition which he assumes as an absolute one, namely, 
that the further we remove from actual perception, 
the less reliable is our thought. From what was 
said just above, it will be seen, however, that this 
assumption is partial, and thus imperfect. To com- 
plete it, we have to hold fast to the other truth, 
namely, that the further we remove from perception, 
the more do our results, if correct, conform to the 
objective reality. In other words, the more abstract 
our thought is, the more does it become a mere form 
which may be filled at pleasure, either by the ma- 
terial of our subjective sensations, or by that of the 
objective world. When we cling, then, to sensation 
and to perception, we have the greatest confidence 
that there is something external corresponding with 
our internal state; yet we may then be most confi- 
dent that this external something is very different 
from our subjective impression. The more abstract 
our thought is, the more sure we are that, if correct, 
it actually corresponds with the reality of the out- 
Avard world. For instance, the scientific statement of 
the number and length of the vibrations which are 
the cause of any particular color corresponds far 
more to the external reality than the simple sensation 
of this color. 

The great problem of connecting the two worlds, 
namely, the subjectiveand objective, resolves itself into 
this, to give to our abstract thought the same amount 



378 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of certainty that belongs to our perception, and even 
greater than this, for each step should correct the errors 
of the preceding, while making none itself. This result 
is only to be reached by long-continued comparison 
of one with the other, and thus by their mutual cor- 
rection. Our experience needs to be vast as possible, 
and our thought, by constant reference to that, needs 
to be kept within the bounds of truth. The trouble is 
that philosophers are apt to take their start from some 
point, real or imaginary, and spin all their thin and 
shadowy system out of this, never correcting or prov- 
ing it by reference to perception or intuition. From 
what has been said, it will be seen that this perfect 
correspondence between the subjective and the objec- 
tive worlds is a result which we are continually 
approaching, but which we can hardly claim to have 
reached, except in some instances of the most abstract 
nature. The mathematical formula being purely 
abstract, we may regard as having real objective signifi- 
cance. The same also is true of the abstract formula 
of progression, namely, from the homogeneous through 
the heterogeneous to the concrete and many-sided 
individual. The first of these, namely, the mathemat- 
ical, is the abstract reality of the static, the other of the 
dynamic and organic realms of existence and of 
thought. The filling out of these abstractions is 
slowly accomplished by the experience of individuals 
and generations. Progressive science is continually 
enlarging the world of our perceptions. Progressive 
philosophy is striving to embody these in its systems ; 
while these systems are undergoing constant correc- 
tion through philosophic criticism, and also through 



SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 379 

scientific discovery. Thus every age makes its gain, 
and establishes some relation between the subjective 
and objective worlds more correct than any that had 
preceded it, while it leaves also a work measureless in 
its extent to be performed by those that come after it. 
Thus this rectification of thought, this making the 
world of thought conform to that of objective reality, 
is not a matter to be fixed by any arbitrary law, nor 
to be accomplished by any separate and special effort. 
It is the work of ages. Each generation of the past 
has contributed to it, and every generation of the 
future will do its part towards its consummation. 

We have seen that thought needs the correction of 
the perception. Before leaving this branch of our 
subject, we have to inquire how thought, in its turn, 
can correct the result of the perception, and how the 
different degrees of thought can and should correct one 
another. Thought may correct in two ways the sen- 
sation. The first is by comparing doubtful with 
indubitable results, as has been before intimated. But 
it may also correct it by enlarging its field. The 
power of sensation is limited. There is much in the 
world, much physical change in existence, which 
is not perceptible by any of our senses. Thus, the 
sense of sight can distinguish pure whiteness and pure 
blackness, and further can discern no color except 
red or violet, and those which are intermediate 
between these. To produce the sensation of redness 
are needed thirty-seven thousand six hundred and forty 
undulations of the luminiferous medium to an inch ; 
to produce extreme violet are needed fifty-nine thou- 
sand seven hundred and fifty such undulations. Now 



380 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

it is not probable, or rather it is not possible, that these 
undulations stop abruptly at these limits. There must, 
at one end and the other, be those that are longer and 
those that are shorter. We can obtain a posteriori 
proof of this. The chemical effects of light are pro- 
duced mainly outside of the solar spectrum, by undula- 
tions shorter and more rapid than those which form 
the color of violet. In other words, we have to lay 
the substance to be acted upon outside the violet 
rays, in what is, to our sense, darkness. For instance, 
a cloth wet in nitrate of silver, in this position becomes 
black. Thus the understanding enlarges the field of 
the senses, that is, it corrects their imperfection by 
revealing to our knowledge what would have been an 
object of direct perception if our senses were less 
limited in their range. T\ T e can easily conceive that 
there may be creatures whose eyes are so constituted 
that they can become affected by colors which to us 
are invisible. Beyond the red on the one side, and 
the violet on the other, they can perceive undulations 
of the luminiferous medium. TV r e cannot see these, 
yet are sure of their existence. What is true of 
sight is also true of hearing. In general, no undula- 
tion of the atmosphere longer than 34.10 feet, or 
shorter than 0.13 is perceptible by the sense of 
hearing, yet we know that these undulations increase 
in one direction and decrease in another to an indefi- 
nite extent. We thus see how the senses are comple- 
mented in their own department by the understanding. 
This limitation of the senses is nothing variable, and 
nothing which can be overcome. The sense of si«ht 
may indeed become strengthened for the beholding of 



SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 381 

distant objects, and for the discernment of minute 
ones. In these two directions there is great variety 
in the vision of different individuals, and also at dif- 
ferent periods of 'he life of the same individual. But 
the limitations of color furnish the fixed points within 
which these changes occur. They are like parallel 
lines, along which we can see to a greater or less dis- 
tance, and the objects between which we can discern 
with more or less minuteness, but which we can never 
pass. The understanding, to repeat, breaks down 
these barriers which shut in the senses, while at the 
same time it brings us more into contact with the 
outer world than the senses can possibly do. Further 
than that, the understanding breaks down the separa- 
tion which the senses establish, as those, for instance, 
between light, heat, and electricity. It shows them 
to be correlated forces, or, rather, different forms of the 
same force. But, on the other hand, the corpuscular 
theory of light, which so long prevailed in the scientific 
world, shows the peril there is as we remove from the 
realm of perception. This theory was the pure crea- 
tion of the understanding. There was nothing corre- 
sponding to it in the sun, nor on the earth. These 
illustrations may suffice to show the greater accuracy, 
the wider range, and, at the same time, the greater 
peril of mistake, that meet us the further we remove 
from simple perception. If our process is correct, the 
further we go from the sensible forms of things, the 
nearer do we approach the reality. 

There is the same gain and the same peril as we 
pass from the understanding to the reason. The un- 
derstanding and the intuitive reason complement one 



382 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



another as the perception and the understanding com- 
plement each other. The reason, as we have seen, 
extends the realm of the understanding beyond the 
objects of its direct examination, changing the sum 
of observations to a universal induction. On the 
other hand, the understanding analyzes the objects 
which the reason reveals. We have the instinct of 
right and wrong, which is one element of our intuitive 
reason. The understanding examines the objects of 
its intuition, and does much to arrange and explain 
their relations by its theory of utilitarianism. This, 
which can never be the basis of morals, wu'll always 
be, to a large extent, the correction, the explanation, 
aud the analysis of morals. If we now compare the 
reason and the understanding with reference to the 
help that Ave derive from them in passing from the 
subjective to the objective, we are met by precisely 
the same result that we found before in comparing 
the perception and the understanding. The under- 
standing stands nearer to simple perception than the 
intuitive reason. This latter reveals to us philosoph- 
ic, moral, and aesthetic relations, brings us nearer to 
the reality of things than the analysis of the under- 
standing. When the moral, the religious, the 
aesthetic intuitions are true and pure, they bring us 
nearer to the heart of things than all the formal in- 
vestigations of the understanding apart from these. 
As one who discerns the free play of life in any ani- 
mal organism knows more about its true nature than 
one who had dissected its organization, but who, if 
we may make for a moment the extravagant hypothesis, 
had never seen a living animal, so one who discerns 






SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 383 

the moral, spiritual, and {Esthetic life and relations 
of the world has more true knowledge of it than the 
most scientific mind destitute of these intuitions. 
Yet, on the other hand, this realm of the intuitive 
reason is the one most exposed to mistake and ex- 
travagance. There is hardly a deformity that might 
not under some circumstances be regarded as beauti- 
ful. There is hardly a crime that has not at some 
times been regarded as a moral virtue, and hardly a 
vagary of the imagination that has not been regarded 
as a philosophic or religious truth. We meet, then, 
the same twofold tendency as before. The further 
we go our results have greater worth, yet are more 
exposed to error. We need, also, a similar safeguard. 
The intuitions of the reason, philosophic, moral, 
aesthetic, and religious, need to be continually sub- 
jected to the criticisms of the understanding, and the 
freer and the sharper this criticism is, the better ; 
while, on the other hand, the understanding needs 
to be quickened and elevated by the reason, and, at 
the same time, to receive from it fresh material for 
its elaboration. 

We have thus considered the first problem sug- 
gested by the relations of the subjective and objective 
worlds. This problem we may call by distinction 
the subjective one. That is, we consider the world 
with reference to our knowledge of it. The second 
problem that springs from these relations we may 
call the objective. It considers the first as settled. 
It regards the subjective and objective worlds as 
equally real, and equally thrown open to our knowl- 
edge. It considers them in their purely objective 



384 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

relation. The terms of the problem arc these : We 
cannot conceive of the outer world as existing of 
itself. It exists in our consciousness. We cannot 
think of it except as we think of it, that is, in its 
relation to thought. By means of our thought we 
trace it hack through the ages of the past. Doing 
this, Ave find to our surprise that thought and con- 
sciousness are objectively the offspring of this outer 
world, which exists only in them. This antithesis 
is sharply put by Schopenhauer, who leaves it where 
he finds it. It is indeed one of the most striking, 
startling, and suggestive of all the paradoxes which 
philosophy and science bring to us. Looking more 
closely, we separate the problem into its elements, 
and put it into its simplest form. The one position 
is that we cannot conceive of subject and object as 
separate. We cannot think of pure subject or of 
pure object, because thought is by its very nature the 
relation of the two. On the other hand, our indi- 
vidual consciousness and that of the race to which we 
belong was, in the order of time, in some way or 
other, developed out of the material or objective 
universe. Thus, so far as we are concerned, there 
must have been pure object before the subjective 
element was introduced, while the latter still depends 
upon the former. The only escape from this anti- 
nomy is the assumption of a consciousness above and 
before ours. There must be an infinite subject in 
which the objective world exists. Subject and ob- 
ject must thus have been always united. This last 
assumption will lead us at once to the second grand 
problem of the reason, namely, that which springs from 



SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 385 

the relation of the Infinite and the Finite ; but another 
point in relation to the relation of the subject and 
object will detain us for a moment. It is this : 
If the subject and object are considered as opposite 
sides of the same reality, so that thought and the 
crass reality of the world are in essence the same, 
which shall we consider as the foundation and ex- 
planation of the other? It is evident that when the 
same question is looked upon simply in this aspect, 
the materialist and the idealist have equal right. The 
materialist can urge that thought is only another form 
of matter; the idealist that matter is only, at heart, 
thought; in other words that it is purely ideal. But 
while both these views have equal right, neither is in 
fact right. Both are alike wrong. The objective 
and the subjective world, being opposite sides of the 
same thing, are not therefore identical. Being op- 
posite sides, they are through this very fact not iden- 
tical. Water and ice are different forms of the same 
substance. Shall we say that ice is frozen water, or 
that water is melted ice ? We have the same right 
to say the one as the other. For convenience' sake, 
we may say either. Yet neither would be absolutely 
true. Ice and water are not identical. They are 
different forms of the same substance, and thus as 
ice and as water they are utterly different. Such is 
the relation between the subjective and the objective 
considered merely in their antagonistic relation to 
one another. Other considerations may indeed dis- 
turb the balance of the two. Whether there be such 
considerations, and if so what they are, arc questions 
which will meet us under the heading of the third 

25 



386 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

problem of philosophy, namely, that of the relation o 4 
inner and outer. J\ conclusion, it may be well to 
repeat the definite results at which we have arrived. 
The subjective and the objective worlds are different 
forms of the same reality. The fundamental formulas 
of both are the same. The objective world is, con- 
sidered in its whole extent, infinite. The subjective 
world, considered as existing in the mind of any in- 
dividual man or generation of men, is finite. The 
senses are limited in their range. The reason is 
limited in its apprehension. The understanding has 
only the material furnished by, these to work with, 
and the infinite relations of this scanty material it can 
only in part comprehend. Thus, the subjective 
world — meaning by this the world of our human 
thought — is always limited. It does not correspond 
with the objective in its fulness. Yet this limitation 
is by the processes of thought and experiment always 
lessening. The subjective is constantly becoming 
more completely one with the objective, that is, more 
completely answering to it. Thus we see what are 
the limits of thought in this direction. At any par- 
ticular moment thought is limited, but these limits 
are constantly giving way, and thought is thus a 
progress into the infinite. 



B, SECOND PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY. THE INFI- 
NITE AND THE FINITE. 

But when we speak of a progress into the infinite, 
do we use words without meaning? Ir it possible 
for the finite to comprehend the infinite? and if not. 
does the word infinite have a meaning? This is tht 



INFINUE >vr$i FINITE. 887 

second question which has been one of the constantly 
recurring, pressing, and fundamental problems of 
philosophy. It we cannot conceive of the infinite, 
then the word infinite has no conceivable meaning. 
The discussion of this question has, with few excep- 
tions, been confused by foreign elements. The word 
infinite is as easily defined and as easily understood 
as any other word. It means without limit. The 
trouble has been, first, that many other considerations 
have been united with this meaning of the word. The 
attempt was made not merely to find what the word 
infinite denoted, but also what it connoted, that is, 
what other notions Averc inseparable from the word. 
Further, it has been applied often to what, by the 
very nature of the case, cannot be infinite. We 
cannot conceive of aii infinite square, any more than 
we can of a round square. A square must have 
limits, and these limits cannot be circular ; yet it is by 
such expressions as this that the discussion of this 
problem has been often confused. Further, by the 
word conception has been understood often an imagina- 
tion. Men have by the word infinite taken away 
the limit from the object of their contemplation, and 
then they have sought to look upon it as a limited 
something. Because they eould not do this, as from 
the nature of the cr le migho have been foreseen, they 
have complained of the limitations of our mind. 
These remarks have not been made for the purpose 
of prejudging the question, but simply to clear up 
our notions in regard to it before entering upon the 
discussion. Leaving now these general and prelim- 
inary observations, we will consider the infinite in 



388 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the various forms under which the word is used, not 
seeking to solve all questions that may arise, nor to 
found or defend any system of philosophy, but sim- 
ply to determine whether we, as finite, have a right 
to use the word infinite ; in other words, whether 
the infinite is one extreme of our thought, or the im- 
passable harrier of it. To do this we must go back 
to the three forms which have so often before been 
the guide of our thought, and consider the subject 
under the three relations of static, dynamic, and 



a. — STATIC INFINITE. 

The first form under which the thought of the in- 
finite presents itself is that of being. Infinite being 
may be thought of in two aspects. The first is, that 
of the indeterminate; the second, that of the absolute 
fulness. We see, to take an illustration often used 
by us, ice, and water, and vapor. We see one passing 
into the other, and know that they are all the same ; 
that is, that they are different forms of one substance. 
What this is we cannot conceive. By itself it has 
no existence. It is always embodied in one of the 
three forms referred to. All w T e can say of it is, 
that it is that which may assume these three forms. 
Our chemical knowledge indeed enables us to take a 
step further. We can say that this, whatever it be, 
is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. Yet this 
analysis does not help us in forming a conception of 
the substance which on the one side consists of these 
two el, ments, and on the other assumes these three 
modes of existence. We can, in fact, form no con 






INFINITE AND FINITE. 389 

ception of what this is in its indeterminate essence, 
for a conception, as was seen in the early part of this 
work, consists in determination or limitation. A 
conception is a universal, limited. Yet none the less 
do we know what the words mean, when we say that 
ice, water, and vapor are different forms of the same 
substance. Indeed, when w r e say this, our universal 
is already limited. It is not absolute indetermiuate- 
ness, but indeterminateness that is subject to certain 
definite determinations. 

If, now, we turn from these three forms which we have 
been considering, water, ice, and vapor, to all the many 
shapes and substances of the universe, it is easy to 
understand what is meant when it is said that all of 
these are different forms of the same being, that is, of 
matter. Of matter by itself we can form no concep- 
tion, for it is the absolutely undetermined. But of 
matter existing under innumerable forms we can form a 
conception, for in each and all of these it is determined , 
and thus we have the two elements of a conception. 

The other form under which we may speak of infi- 
nite being is that of fulness. The first is absolutely 
undetermined and empty. The second is that which 
contains all the variety of quality and of substance. 
Here, also, w T e may help our thought, by taking a 
familiar illustration. Men often become bewildered 
by questioning and doubting forms of thought which 
are used simply, safely, and necessarily in common 
life, when these are applied to vast and difficult sub- 
jects. Of the infinite fulness we have an illustration in 
light. Light, so far as the various colors are concerned 
is mfinite. Were there nothing but colors in the uni- 






390 HIE SCIENCE OF xHOUGHT. 



verse, light vould be the absolutely infinite. As it 
is, it can be regarded as infinite only when the thought 
is fixed upon colors alone.- Light is not mere indeter- 
minateness in regard to color. The uncolored sub- 
stance exists in this relation of indeterminateness to 
color. But light contains all colors in itself. What 
distinguishes the solar spectrum from light is not so 
much determinateness as evolution. We can con- 
ceive of light, we can conceive of color. We can 
conceive of light, because it has its peculiar proper- 
ties ; of color, because each color is distinct from the 
others ; but of light, as containing the colors in itself, 
we cannot conceive. Yet we know that light does 
thus contain the colors. We can understand the mean- 
ing of the words. We can conceive of light as that 
which may become colors. But we cannot bring the 
two together into a single conception, because each 
rests on distinct, sensible impressions. Science may, 
indeed, give us a scientific conception. It may show 
us the relations of the different undulations of which 
light and colors are composed ; but this will not help 
*s so far as colors, properly so called, are concerned. 
We may now turn from this illustration to that 
which is the general object of our present thought. 
We can understand that there should be an infinitude 
in which all positive qualities are included, as colors 
are included in light. Though the one is so vast, it 
is not in its nature different from the other. We 
cannot, indeed, conceive of these qualities as they 
exist undivided in this infinite, any more thah we can 
conceive of the colors existing in light ; but w 3 can 
fellow with our conception the statement that all tuesc 



INFINITE AND FINITE. 3£1 

qualities were evolved from one infinite fulness, as we 
can that colors are evolved from light. This fulness 
in itself is, save in this infinite possibility, not different 
from emptiness. Light itself, absolutely unbroken, 
is in no sensible way different from darkness. It 
differs only in its possibility. It strikes an object, and 
the colors spring into distinct existence, as when the 
ocean smites a rock it scatters its white spray. This 
is what Hegel means in the statement with which his 
philosophy begins, — a statement which has served for 
matter of ridicule to many who have gone no further, 
but in which he only takes common ground with 
almost every metaphysical writer who has attempted 
to reach this ultimate verge of thought, namely, 
the statement that being and nothing are one. This 
is not true, absolutely, he says, for the one is the 
infinite fulness and the infinite possibility. Pure, 
absolute, undetermined, undeveloped being is not 
any thing, because every thing involves limita- 
tion. We say of an object, It is. The listener waits 
to know what it is. When we can apply a certain 
quality to it, then we have a conception. The next 
question, then, that meets us in regard to static in- 
finity is whether we can conceive of an infinite qual- 
ity, whether the word infinite quality has any mean- 
ing for us. 

By recalling what was said in regard to quality, 
in the first part of this work, it will be seen that the 
expression infinite quality is a contradiction in terms. 
A quality beyond a certain point tends to pass into 
the opposite. This may be illustrated by colors. 
Light, as was said, is the Infinite, so far as colors are 



392 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

concerned. Each color is by its very nature limited. 
Tt stands in a polar relation to other colors, especially 
to its opposite. When intensified, it tends to drag 
its other after it, whether subjectively in the eye, or 
objectively in the outer world. We may speak, 
to take another example, of infinite hardness. The 
infinitely hard would be the absolutely impenetrable. 
It would seem as if we might conceive of this. But 
in the infinitely hard the attraction of cohesion would 
have absolute sway. The object, being thus governed 
by attraction, unlimited by any repulsion, would 
shrink to a point. Indeed, the indivisible atoms, 
assumed in some physical systems, represent the only 
possible conception we can form of the infinitely 
hard. These are, by their very nature, and by the 
very definition of infinite hardness, impalpable. Thus 
the infinitely hard has become by its very nature the 
perfectly soft. 

If we pass from quality to quantity, — the next 
determination of static existence, — we ask whether 
we can conceive of infinite quantity. Extensive 
quantity divides itself into two distinct forms, namely, 
continuous and discrete. The only form of continuous 
quantity, in regard to which we could think of using 
the term infinite, is space. 

The questions whether space is infinite or finite, 
and whether we can conceive of infinite space, are 
Questions that have been the fruitful source of philo- 
sophic discussion. Much confusion has been caused 
by confounding extension with space. Extension, so 
fai as we have any knowledge of it, is made up of 
discrete quantity. And thus the problems whether 



INFINITE AND FINITE. 393 

we can conceive of infinite space, unci whether we can 
conceive of infinite extension, are two which require 
different forms of examination, if not different an- 
swers. Space is simply the possibility of infinite 
extension, or, what is the same thing, the infinite 
possibility of extension. Space is in itself nothing. 
If yon imagine an object struck out of existence, 
and nothing to take its place, that nothing would be 
called space. Ity the term would be meant the pos- 
sibility of putting something else there, without dis- 
placing anything. Such is the meaning of space as 
applied to the universe. If that were struck out 
of existence, nothing would be left. If we suppose 
the universe to be finite, we say that it exists in infi- 
nite space. By this is meant that we can conceive of 
the universe as being extended indefinitely. There is 
nothing to limit it ; or, in other words, if we should 
leave the universe, and could live and move in vacuity, 
nothing would ever limit our flight. This possibility 
of indefinite extension and indefinite movement is a 
property of the extended material universe, or of 
any single object in it. Space itself is thus nothing. 

In following the discussions of the philosophers in 
regard to space, we are reminded of the familiar 
story of Hans Christian Andersen in regard to the 
royal robe that was said to be invisible to those un- 
fitted for their office or position. It would seem as if 
most philosophers fancied they would appear incom- 
petent for their work, if they did not multiply high- 
sounding words in regard to the munificent nothing 
that envelops the universe. 

When we turn from space to extension, from con- 



394 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

tiiuious to discrete quantity, we turn from nothing to 
everything. The question, whether we can conceive 
of infinite extension, is a question that has at least a 
meaning. The possibility of infinite extension is es- 
-rmtiai to our very thought of extension. That is, 
we cannot think of any object, however vast, without 
seeing the possibility of something existing bej'ond 
jt, or of its moving in any direction from itself, the 
lines of direction being taken from its own structure, 
and not from the nothing called space. Whether ex- 
tension is at any moment actually infinite, that is, 
whether the physical universe has absolutely no 
Donnds, is a question that is difficult not merely to 
decide, but in regard to which it is difficult to deter- 
mine the a priori possibility of solution. Here the 
scientific theories of the infinite and limited elasticity 
of matter do not concern us. Far as the farthest 
star that is visible, matter extends in uninterrupted 
course, as is shown by this visibility, which could 
not propagate itself across an absolute vacuum. But 
leaving these scientific aspects of the case, and look- 
ing beyond the farthest discernible limit, it would 
seem to the mind, at first thought, that a collection 
of finite particles must be itself finite. We cannot, 
it would seem, conceive a finished collection of 
bodies to be absolutely numberless. We can con- 
ceive of their being progressively infinite, by means 
of new creations ; but we cannot, it would appear, 
conceive of their being at anj^ one moment absolute- 
ly infinite. But while considering the mental diffi- 
culty involved in this conception, we must remem- 
Vr that space itself is made up of infinite points ; 



INFINITE AND FINITE. 395 

that is, there is a possibility of infinite extension, 
and that it is the possibility that staggers ns. We 
thus see that the difficulty in regard to forming a 
conception of infinite extension springs from the ten- 
dency that we have elsewhere noticed to confound 
conception with imagination, and that thus the diffi- 
culty is imaginary. 

Discrete quantity may exist either in succession or 
in extension. The possibility of successive existence, 
or change, is called time, as the possibility of exten- 
sion is called space. As we can conceive that start- 
ing from any point, had we power of infinite move- 
ment, we could move forever, this conception fur- 
nishing our idea of infinite space, so w# can imagine 
that the successive changes which fill up and consti- 
tute that which we call time may be continued for- 
ever. This possibility of infinite time we call 
eternity. The common apprehension is, indeed, 
somewhat different from this. It is fancied that at 
death, or at the end of the world, time will stop and 
eternity will begin. But, so long as there are finite 
beings in existent, so long must their lives be meas- 
ured by succeswe periods. When time shall cease, 
it shall be because all finite being is absorbed and 
lost in the one infinite. If by eternity we mean the 
unfulfilled possibility of time, it lies close before us 
at every step. We are always on the verge of it, 
but it flies before us. More accurately, eternity is 
the substance of which time consists. Eternity is 
the measureless ocean. Time is the ripple running 
across its surface. We believe in the possibility, 
and in the reality, of the infinitude of time as it 



396 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

stretches before us ; that is, we believe that this 
series of finite changes will never reach its end. 
The finite is always pressing into the infinite, yet 
never becoming one with it, because it is finite and 
the other is infinite. Eternity is thus always an 
unfulfilled possibility. Every point reached repre- 
sents only so much finite time. Every ppint is a 
limit, while the possibility which is infinite stretches 
before. 

As we look back and ask whether there is an infi- 
nite series behind us, as well as an infinite series be- 
fore, we are perplexed by new complications. Our 
first impression is, as it was in regard to space, that 
there can never be an infinite series completed ; that 
we cannot trace back an infinite succession into the 
past, because that would involve a complete infini- 
tude in one direction, whereas in finite relations the 
infinite is only an infinite possibility. Here, how- 
ever, we are met by a graver difficulty on the other 
side. We cannot conceive this series to have had 
a beginning. Every change implies a preceding 
change. This succession, which we call time, pre- 
senting, as it does outwardly, mere static relations, 
is connected inwardly with dynamic ones. The 
great law of cause and effect comes into play. There 
is no beginning of movement without previous 
movement. Theologians, indeed, are in the habit 
of stopping short the series with what is called the 
great first cause. But this does not help the matter. 
We cannot conceive the Divine Being to have passed 
an eternity of inaction, and suddenly, without any 
stimulating cause, to have entered upon the wori 



INFINITE AND FINITE. 397 

of creation. This great first cause, if we may use 
an expression so liable to misuse, is first, not in the 
order of time nor before the order of time, but as 
being the one power from which is the energy of ail 
finite force. It is not before, but within and behind, 
the row of finite succession. And, indeed, could we 
believe that this finite succession had a sudden be- 
ginning, that there was a moment wdiich was the 
first moment of time, and all that preceded it was 
eternity, yet this eternity was simply the possibility 
of time. It was the endless possibility, and the con- 
ception of this possibility^ of time is subject to the 
same difficulty as that of time without beginning. 
It is the possibility itself that staggers us. 

We have found, then, a difficulty in both directions. 
We cannot conceive of time without beginning, and 
we cannot conceive of it with a beginning. Yet it 
must be one or the other. This antinomy in oui 
thoughts cannot represent an unyielding antagonism 
in the outward reality. When we look more closely 
at our difficulty, we find that the word conceive is 
used in a different sense in the two cases. When we 
say we cannot conceive of an infinite made up < f 
finite points, we mean that the mind cannot take in 
the idea. We understand the words, we know what 
they mean, but we can form no corresponding image 
in the mind. When we say there cannot be the be- 
ginning of finite change, we mean that such a begin- 
ning would contradict the fundamental and absolute 
law of cause and effect, according to which change is 
always preceded by change. When wehave to choose, 
then, between what would cause a stretch of faculties to 



398 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

which they are unequal, and that which would in- 
volve a contradiction of the fundamental law of 
thought, we must choose in preference the first. We 
are driven to admit that time can have had no begin- 
ning ; and as we were at first thought disposed to deny 
the infinitude of extension for the same reason that we 
were tempted to denj r that time could have had no 
beginning, we see from a fresh point of view that 
there is left us no ground for denying the infinitude 
of extension, that is, for denying that space may be 
filled by the material universe ; although we are not 
driven to this by the same necessity that controlled 
us in regard to time. 

b.— DYNAMIC INFINITE. 

Having thus considered what we may call the stat- 
ical infinite, we have now to consider the dynamical 
infinite. Can we conceive of infinite force, and un- 
der what form does such force present itself to. the 
mind? As we look at the universe we find that 
gravitation may claim to be such a force in a certain 
direction, as a straight line may be infinite in length, 
though in other respects infinitesimal. If the ma- 
terial universe be infinite in its extent, gravitation, 
which is coextensive with this universe, is also so far 
infinite. Indeed, without regard to the probability 
of a boundless universe, gravitation would hold to- 
gether such a universe if it existed. All the worlds, 
no matter how mighty, no matter if they were num- 
berless, w T ould be controlled by it as easily as the 
falling apple is drawn by it to the earth. In all thi 






INFINITE AND FINITE. 399 

measureless burden there would be no strain, no fall- 
ing off, no stimulus, no unsteadiness. It would fol- 
low its own law and neither lag nor hurry. When 
we look more closely, we find that though the force 
of gravitation and attraction is infinite so far as ex- 
tension is concerned, in intensity it is finite. Th<j 
force of repulsion is its constant and well-matched 
opponent. They contend together, and the universe, 
as it exists, is caused by their equilibrium. Besides 
this, there are other forces which modify the action 
of these two. Chemical forces readjust their rela- 
tions. The flash of the electric current overpowers 
the might of gravitation. The forces of life, in their 
turn, suspend the action of the chemical forces, al- 
though at last they yield to them, while the force of 
intellect enters as a new element in the grand contest 
of forces which makes up the life of the worlds. No 
one of these forces can be pronounced in the strict 
sense of the word infinite. Modern science opens to 
us, however, in the doctrine of the correlation of 
forces, a grand conception. It is that of one com- 
mon, universal force, of which all these are but the 
varied forms. Attraction, chemical, vital and intel- 
lectual forces are affirmed to be only the varied man- 
ifestations of this one. It holds material substauces 
together as attraction. It opposes itself under the 
form of repulsion, it flashes in the lightning, it 
burns in the flames, it awakes the vital energies of 
the world as light, and, in the plant, itself grows and 
blossoms and bears fruit. Can we form a conception 
of this force in itself? If we cannot, it is because it 
has no such independent existence. Its very exist 



400 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

cnce is in these diversified manifestations. In this it 
is similar to the substance which exists under the 
different forms of ice, water, and vapor, but which is 
in itself neither of them. A\ r e cannot conceive of it 
in itself, yet we can understand the truth of the 
proposition which affirms that these three are only 
different forms of one substance. So, when we say 
that this one infinite force exists in all these different 
forms, ^YG state what is intelligible. It involves no 
limitation of our understanding that we cannot con- 
ceive of it in any separate and independent shape, 
for as such it does not exist. 

We might here rest content, and feel that we had 
reached the conception of infinite force. We are 
able, however, to take a step further. The doctrine 
of universal and endless progress brings us to the 
thought of a force that is really infinite in the largest 
and fullest meaning of the word. Progress implies 
that at every step there is more force than is needed 
for the existing relations of things. Indeed, all 
movement implies the same. There is an extra or 
superfluous power, which, not needed for the exist- 
ing arrangement, introduces a new. We may illus- 
trate this, by the old experiment of the ivory balls. 
The force of a blow struck against the first of the 
series is transmitted to the last. Each of these ivory 
balls possesses for the moment an extra and super- 
fluous force which passes on to the one next before 
it. We can attain a more vivid conception of the 
same thing, if we imagine the balls to bo hung at a 
little distance from one another, say an inch apart. 
When the first ball is struck it moves an inch. 






INFINITE AND FINITE. 401 

It possesses, however, more force than is needed to 
move it this distance. This force is transmitted to 
the next. This second ball is also moved an in. h : 
but it, also, is the bearer of more force than is needed 
for this movement, and this extra force is transmitted 
to the next. The number of balls that could be thus 
moved, each an inch, will show the amount of force 
which was for the moment embodied in the first ball. 
It the series thus moved were infinite, then the first 
ball, and indeed each ball in its order, was for the 
moment the bearer of an infinite force. In like 
maimer, if the history of the world or of the uni- 
verse be an endless progression, an infinite force is 
involved at every step. 

The same fact may be illustrated in a different 
manner, according to the familiar and plausible 
theory of Mayer. The heat of the sun, and thus the 
vitality of all the solar system, is kept up, according 
to this theory, by the collision of meteoric matter 
with the sun, as a bit of iron may be kept hot by re- 
peated blows. According to this theoiy, the mate- 
rial universe is infinite. It is filled with nebulous 
matter. A current of this is formed towards the 
sun by the force of its attraction. This nebulous 
matter becomes condensed as it approaches the solar 
system, until it hardens into the meteoric substances, 
the blow of which revives the failing energy of the 
sun. Thus does the solar system continually derive 
fresh life from this source. Under one of these two 
forms must we conceive of the endless progress of 
the universe. Either an infinite force is embodied at 

26 



402 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

every stage, or a fresh force is continually being in- 
troduced from an infinite fountain. 

C. — ORGANIC INFINITE. — THE ABSOLUTE. 

We have thus considered the infinite in its static 
and dynamic relations. We have now to consider 
the thought of the infinite in the largest and fullest 
sense of the term, which includes all statical and all 
dynamical relations, and which, from its including 
these two elements in one complete whole that is at 
once infinite in repose and infinite in activity, we 
may call the organic infinitude. This infinite ful- 
ness is what is called the absolute. It is, as has been 
said, infinite in repose, for there is nothing outward 
to disturb it, and it suffers neither addition nor dim- 
inution. At the same time, it is infinite in activity, 
for, as we have seen, an infinite force is pervading it 
at every moment. Thus the body of a sleeping man 
is, so far as outward bodies are concerned, in repose ; 
yet within, all the vital functions are still active in 
those processes which, from birth to death, suffer no 
suspension. 

The infinite is often spoken of as existing over 
against the finite. If this were true of the infinite, 
in the largest sense of the term, there could be no 
such tiling. If the infinite were over against the 
finite, there would be two finites. The absolute in- 
cludes the finite in itself. It includes the infinite 
power and the finite manifestation of the power. 
The power without such manifestation would be it- 






INFINITE AND FINITE. 403 

self powerless. It would have no field, and would 
thus be limited, that is, finite. The manifestation or 
the unfolding of all that is involved in this power is 
finite at every step, and beeomes infinite only by 
means of endless succession. To pass, for the mo- 
ment, from abstract terms to concrete, the absolute 
is not God alone, if we can conceive for the moment 
of a possible divine existence without any objective 
universe. The absolute includes both God, using 
the word in its popular significance to signify the ab- 
stract divine consciousness, and the universe, the 
universe being in its endless series of progressive 
change the manifestation of God. For the complete 
conception of the absolute, then, it is necessary that 
the unyielding wall, which is apt to separate in our 
thought the infinite and finite, should be broken 
down. We must, to use still concrete language, con- 
ceive that God recognizes in the progressive universe 
the manifestation of himself; while, on the other 
hand, the universe should come to the consciousness 
of the Divine or Infinite, as being active within it- 
self. This is done by the spirit in its largest con- 
sciousness and its grandest thought, It becomes 
conscious that it and all things exist onlv in the cli- 
vine, and that the divine is the life of whatever has 
true life. In this large consciousness, which is 
reached by religion, by philosophy, and by the 
purest intuition j we have the circle complete. The 
absolute has reached its true and full reality. It ex- 
ists not only, to use the language of philosophy, in 
itself, but also for itself; that is, each side recog- 
nizes itself in the other. At the same time it must 



404 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



ute 



be remembered that the infinite exists in the fin 
only as an infinite possibility. The rush, the hurry 
the unresting succession of the universe, is the strug- 
gle to express the infinite in finite factors. Yet as 
this process is endless, that which is in itself finite 
becomes thus the manifestation of the infinite. 

It we consider what has been said of the infinite, 
in its relation to the limits of our human thought, 
the first fact that meets us is, that the definitions of it, 
that is, the meaning of the words, we can understand. 
When we say that the absolute is the absolutely infi- 
nite, we know what is meant. We cannot indeed 
take in all the fulness of the absolute, because we are 
a part of the finite manifestation. But, on the other 
hand, our limitation is a retreating one. We, also, 
having an endless progression before us, these limits 
will retreat endlessly, so that they do not belong to 
the spirit, but to the moment. We are always over- 
passing them, and thus they have no permanent re- 
ality. 

We thus conceive of the absolute as divided. 
There is the infinite power, and there is the manifes- 
tation of it, which is infinite through endless succes- 
sion. Of the beginning of this division, that is, of 
the first act of creation, we can have no conception. 
We cannot get beyond the relation of finite causes, 
though we know that behind each of these is the in- 
finite cause. We can trace the world back to the 
nebulous haze, but we still ask whence and how. 
We cannot conceive of the beginning of the material 
universe. We can conceive only of an endless pro- 
cess. This does not show the weakness, but the 



INNER AND OUTER. 405 

strength, of our thought. If what has been said is 
true, the material universe is such a process without 
beginning and without end. By the material uni- 
verse, we here understand the universe of finite 
forms or beings. Behind and within these is the in- 
finite power, which is infinite through this endless 
manifestation. If we can conceive of neither begin- 
ning nor end, it is because there is none. Or rather, 
since the end is not so much of time as of attain- 
ment, it is reached at every step. At every step the 
infinite and the finite meet. At every step, the infi- 
nite recognizes itself in the finite, and the finite rec- 
ognizes more perfectly the infinite. Thus every step 
is an attainment. At every step the absolute com- 
pletes itself. 



THIRD PROBLEM OF THE REASON. — INNER AND 
OUTER. 



The mind is not content to know that there is an 
infinite force in the universe, controlling the changes 
of the outward world. It demands to know the 
nature of this force. It is not content with the visible 
procession of the outward forms of things. It feels 
that the reality is within and behind these. This 
manifold and variegated nature seems often only a 
painted screen, a drop-curtain, which shuts out that 
which is most worthy of wonder. 

"Men ask," says Hegel, in effect, "what is the 
interior of the universe ? what is within ? " But he 
says, This is a question that nature is always an- 



406 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

swering. The growth, the progress of nature and of 
history, these are only a turning inside out. There 
is nothing hidden that is not revealed. There is 
great truth in this statement. The plant and the 
flower show the inner nature of the seed or of the 
bulb. Every stage in nature is the preparation for, 
and the prophecy of, what is to come after ; and that 
which comes after shows what was hidden within that 
which went before. Human nature is the fulfilment 
of the lower natures, and is the heart and kernel of 
the world ; while the latest history is the unfolding 
of what was hidden in the earlier. 

Though this is true, it does not fully meet and 
satisfy the need and the demand which have just been 
described. Men feel that there is something within 
and behind at every step, something which the evolu- 
tion of nature and history does not exhaust. Scho- 
penhauer affirms a principle in regard to this, which 
has always been taken for granted, though never so 
distinctly expressed ; and even Schopenhauer himself 
fails in the carrying out of his principle. The principle 
of Schopenhauer is this : We demand to know what 
is the inner nature of the phenomena by which we are 
surrounded. We cannot get to the heart of them. 
There is, however, one phenomenon, the interior of 
which every one can reach and behold. This phenom- 
enon is, for every one, himself. To the outer world, 
he is a form like other forms, a phenomenon among 
phenomena. But he, in this single case, is admitted 
behind the scenes, and knows what is the inner force 
and nature. What he finds there, in this only op- 
portunity which he has to go behind the forms of nature, 



INNER AND OUTER. 407 

he is justified in using in the explanation of nature. 
What he finds behind this phenomenon he may assume 
to be behind all phenomena. It is as we find it in the 
case of the worlds. We are admitted to sec the inner 
nature and the use of only one, yet we cannot help 
using what we find in this world for the understanding 1 
and explanation of the others. Though Schopenhauer 
has thus laid down an important principle, he has, 
as was stated above, failed in his application of it. 
He states that our consciousness affirms that the in- 
most core of our nature is the will. The will is the 
substance within and behind the phenomenon which 
bears our name. This will he further defines to be 
the blind impulse of the whole nature, which de- 
termines, or rather which is, the unchangeable 
character of each, which controls the intellectual 
faculties themselves, and to which all conscious mo- 
tive, and the whole mental organization, are non- 
essential accidents. This view he has wrought out 
with an unexampled brilliancy and acuteness. Yet it 
must be admitted that this blind will of which he 
speaks is not an object of consciousness. It is not 
what we find when we look into ourselves. All that 
we are conscious of is the will acting consciously and 
according to conscious motives. Will, defined from 
the consciousness of any individual, would be defined, 
Force united with conscious motives. Schopenhauer's 
notion of will, as in itself blind and unconscious, he 
does not find in his own nature. He finds it in the 
outer world, and from thence brings it into himself. 
The real process of his thought was the opposite of 
what he described. While he claims to be explaining 






408 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the outer world from the inner nature of man, he is 
really explaining the inner nature of man by the 
outer world. Even when he attempts to prove by 
brilliant argument that this unconscious will, as a 
mere blind force, is the inner nature and true being 
of man, he reasons about this inner nature, instead 
of telling what it is in his own consciousness. His 
result is the result of argument, and does not spring 
from what he sees in his single peep behind the scenes. 

The general principle of Schopenhauer is unques- 
tionably true, and it is one on which mankind has 
always acted, only, instead of this blind force, men 
have found within themselves a conscious will acting 
from conscious motive, and it is this that they have 
applied to the explanation of the outer world. This 
force indeed is often blind. The motives from which 
it acts are not always conscious. It sometimes cheats 
the intellect by feigning unreal motives, as when an 
angry man persuades himself that in his revenge he is 
seeking merely the public good, or whern it leads one 
to the verge of some bad action, pretending that it 
does not mean to commit it, and only at last throws 
off its disguise, and springs forth to accomplish the 
act. In spite of all this, we feel that the conscious 
and self-directing will is the consummation of human- 
ity. The examples, such as have been referred to, are 
taken from its degradation ; and it is this perfection 
of human nature which is felt to be the key to the 
mystery of the universe. 

This key men in all ages have used instinctively. 
All science rests upon the assumption cf the corre- 
spondence between our own nature and that of the 



INNER AND OUTER. 409 

inner life of the universe. It seeks in the world a 
plan and an order, which shall to us seem orderly and 
systematic. This search assumes that the power 
which controls all things adopts an order like that 
which a perfect mind would adopt. Philosophy more 
openly assumes the same thing, in that it more 
consciously applies the forms of human thought to the 
explanation of the outward world. This same as- 
sumption is the starting-point and the life of all 
religion. The earliest form of religion, Fetichism, 
took it for granted that behind each of the individual 
forms of the world was a nature like our nature. The 
stone, the tree, the animal, were each believed to be 
animated by a spirit akin to the human spirit. Poly- 
theism gives up no inch of the ground thus covered. 
It sees behind all the objects of the world a like nature 
and intelligence, only it puts one such nature behind 
groups of objects. Monotheism, following the gen- 
eralizations of science, places one intelligence behind 
all the manifold shapes of the universe. In the 
largest and the smallest it sees the traces of this 
presence. It has receded no step from the position 
even of Fetichism. Behind every individual object it 
finds this kindred presence, only there is but one. 
All nature is aglow from this one light. Fetichism 
is retained to a very large extent in the most developed 
thought. In other persons, in animals, we see motives 
and feelings like those which we ourselves possess. 
We explain their acts from our consciousness. But 
beside this, we apply our consciousness to the ex- 
planation of the great movements of nature and history, 
It has been just said that this process is instinctive 



410 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

It is, also, in the highest sense, rational. It results 
from tht fundamental proposition of the reason, that, 
namely, which affirms the unity of all things. From 
this it would result that our nature must correspond 
with the nature about us. 

The question now meets us, When we speak of 
the inner nature of the universe as kindred to that 
of ourselves, do the words mean anything? The 
question of finite and infinite meets us here again, and 
we must make a definite application of the principles 
alreacty laid down, uniting the results of that investi- 
gation with those of the present. The difficulty is, 
that we apply terms taken from the affections, that is, 
from the qualities of our finite natures, to the infinite 
nature. Qualities, as we have seen, cannot be infinite. 
They are, by their very nature, finite. Do the words 
which name them have any meaning when applied to 
the infinite being? It must here be remembered that 
the word infinite has a relative use as well as an ab- 
solute one. To return to an illustration already 
repeated, light is infinite in relation to the colors. 
An endless line is infinite in one direction. So the 
human mind or soul is infinite as regards its own 
qualities. More generally, every object is infinite 
with respect to its qualities, as light is with respect to . 
color. That is, every object is at heart a unit. Every 
human being is one, though his qualities are mani- 
fold. This one integral nature exhibits itself to 
us by means of these manifold qualities. They 
are not it ; they are manifestations of it ; they are 
modes of its existence. The fact that these quali- 
ties are partial, imperfect, or few, shows that the 



INNER ANT OUTER. 411 

nature is, as regards other natures, itself imperfect 
and finite. To say that the application of the names 
of qualities to the one supreme being which we call 
God is meaningless, because we have no conception 
of any but finite qualities, shows a confusion of 
thought. To say that God is a being of infinite 
qualities is to use words without meaning, because 
quality is, by its very nature, finite. When we say, 
however, that God is the being of all perfect qualities, 
we no longer use words without meaning. We mean 
that in him are all perfections, all the perfections of 
the universe. To say that these are finite, is only to 
say that they are qualities. They are the limitations 
of his infinite nature for the manifestation of itself, as 
our qualities are the limitations of our natures in their 
self-manifestation. A person would meet precisely 
the same difficulties in explaining how the several 
qualities of the single nature of any one human being 
could spring from this one single nature, as to explain 
the relation of the divine qualities to the infinite 
divine nature. When you come into contact with any 
quality of a human being, you have not reached his 
real and central nature, but have reached within a 
step of it ; that is, you have reached its first manifes- 
tation. So, when we meet the divine qualities, we do 
not meet the absolute nature of God, but its mani- 
festation. We come nearest to this nature when we 
apply to it that which we can conceive as most perfect. 
Could the inanimate worlds conceive of God, from 
their lower degree of relations, they would conceive 
of him as the infinite force. This conception would 
be partial, yet true as far as it went. No higher 



412 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

conception could leave out that of the infinite force. 
So the plant would, and rightly, conceive of God as 
the infinite life. That conception would be true, 
though partial. The spirit conceives of him as the 
infinite spirit. This is still true, but still partial. 
What may be above this we do not know, or what 
further may be involved in the word spirit. 

We may look at the same facts from a different 
stand-point. When we see the regular arrangement 
of all things in the world, we cannot apply to it any 
other word than Order. When we see the adaptation 
of everything to its end, we cannot describe it by 
any other term so well as by the word Wisdom. When 
we see the beneficent working of the laws of the 
world, we can use no other word in regard to their 
source than Benevolence. In a word, we cannot 
think of the central and inner power of the universe, 
save by using forms of thought adapted to express 
such personal relations. The words thus used have a 
positive meaning. Moreover, the highest quality 
that we can conceive, we feel that we predicate most 
truly of this cause, unknown yet always revealing 
itself. When, looking on the one side, we find that 
the highest term that we can use is Love, and on the 
other, we look at the beneficent working of the forces 
of the universe, and of the intimate connection of 
every soul with this hidden cause, so that every life 
touches it, comes forth from it, and exists in it, we 
find no word so fitting as the word Love to express 
the reality of this relationship. 

From what has been said, it will be seen that the 
limit of our thought here is like that in other direc- 






PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 413 

tions, a retreating one. As our own interior life 
beeomes perfect, the more insight do we have into 
the inner life of the universe. The two progressions 
move side by side. 

We have studi.d the nature of these problems of 
the reason, in order to discover the limits of human 
thought. We find that the solution in all cases de- 
pends upon the one fundamental proposition of the 
reason which affirms the unity of the universe ; and 
we find, also, that the limits of human thought are 
those which spring from its finiteness, but that they 
are limits which are constantly retreating before the 
expanding nature of the soul. Thus there is no 
absolute limitation to thought. Its limits are only 
those of the moment, which the next moment removes. 
New limits, it is true, take the place of the old, but 
these are as transient as the first. 

SECOND.— PROBLEMS OF THE UNDERSTANDING OR 
OF SCIENCE. 

The limits of human thought, as it strives to solve 
the problems of science, offer less to detain us than 
we found in pursuing like investigations in regard to 
the problems of the reason or of philosophy. In the 
case of these latter, the limits in which thought is, or 
is supposed to be, confined, spring from the nature of 
thought itself, and thus require consideration in a 
logical discussion. In the case of science, the limita- 
tions are for the most pnrt in the nature or relations 
of the externa! world. The one can thus be deter- 
mined by a priori reasoning; the other only by a 



414 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

posteriori. Still, however, a hasty glance at this field 
is necessary for the completion of our treatment of 
the subject. We will retain the same division that 
has so often served us, namely, that of statical, dynami- 
cal, and organic relations. 

The forms which are assumed by what we.may call 
statical science are twofold. This science may be 
either historical or analytical. What we call, somewhat 
loosely, historical science includes the description 
and classification of all the objects in the universe, 
present and past, so far as these are accessible to 
human knowledge. This last provision suggests the 
external limit of these sciences, although this limit is 
a variable one, receding before the advance of inven- 
tion and of research. The invention of the telescope 
and every improvement in its structure have opened 
new fields to be occupied by descriptive science. 
The microscope has done the same, in the opposite 
direction. Geologic research has made the past also, 
in a great measure, open to scientific description. In 
the face of all this advance, it would be folly to at- 
tempt to fix any limit to the advance of descriptive 
science. It would appear to us that the distance of 
the stars must forever shut them out from the domain 
of our knowledge ; while so far as the past is con- 
cerned, it would seem as if the primitive strata, out 
of which almost every trace of life has been removed 
by fierce heat, would forever wall up any further 
progress in that direction. Even the first traces of 
the history of man would seem to be washed out by 
the glacial period, as drawings upon a slate are washed 
out by a wet sponge. Yet we cannot say that these 



PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 415 

limits may not be surpassed. We know not what 
discoveries are before us. So far as the past is con- 
cerned, history is still making. Every stage of being 
may be now existing in the world. The primitive 
elements are still at work. Continents are still 
forming. The coral insects are plying their slow but 
stupendous work. Beasts and savages still roam the 
earth, and, if no other means are at control, it may be 
that the present may thus replace and explain the 
past. 

The other element of historical science is, as we 
have seen, that of classification. Nothing is easier 
than to classify ; nothing is harder than to make one's 
classification fall in with the plan of nature. The 
rejoicing of Hugh Miller when he discovered, or 
supposed that he had discovered, that the divisions 
and arrangements of geology fit in w r ith the actual 
divisions in the process of creation, illustrates the 
kind of triumph that every science must achieve. The 
superiority of the natural to the artificial system of 
botany is simply that the former falls in more accu- 
rately with the divisions of nature. The artificial 
system included all in a convenient form, more 
convenient in some respects than that furnished by 
the other, yet in entering it we left the world of na- 
ture. There is here, also, no limit that can be affixed 
to scientific progress. There is no reason why it 
should not continually approach more and more nearly 
actual identity with nature itself. 

The other element of statical science was stated to 
be anal} T tical. Historical science describes and classi- 
fies. Analytical science seeks to reduce the elements 



416 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of nature to the smallest possible number. Unity is 
the end of all science. The problem of analytical 
science is to reduce the fundamental elements of all 
bodies as nearly as possible to unity. How nearly 
this can be accomplished cannot of course be even 
guessed at. The question, however, may be raised 
as to whether there is any a priori possibility of 
reaching the complete result aimed at, that is, of 
determining whether from one simple substance all 
others could be by any possibility derived. It would 
seem, at first sight, as if this were absolutely impos- 
sible ; as if there must be at least two primary 
substances in order that the first compound could be 
formed. The late discoveries in regard to the colloid 
condition of matter show, however, that it is danger- 
ous to dogmatize in this direction. We see a simple 
substance, or what appears to us to be such, existing 
under two utterly unlike forms. The conjecture may 
thus be ventured whether it may not possibly be found 
that one simple substance might exist, the arrange- 
ment of the particles of which might be capable of 
assuming two forms so distinct that the two might 
enter into combination with each other. This sug- 
gestion is not put forward as a theory, but only to 
show the danger of attempting to limit the progress 
of science by any a priori theories. The fact that 
some binary compounds result from a twofold com- 
position of their elements, as if, for instance, the 
symbol for water should be, as some maintain, IP 
O 2 instead of II O, may illustrate the possibility in 
the direction pointed out. 

The example taken from the colloid condition of 



PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 417 

matter dors not, it is obvious, fairly apply. Should 
the ultimate elements of matter ever be reduced to 
one, it will be shown that these bodies which assume 
two forms are not simple, but themselves compound. 
What we call the colloid would be the allotropic 
condition of matter. But the fact of the recognition 
of this colloid state by science shows that the most 
opposite conditions of an absolutely simple substance 
are not inconceivable. 

It is, however, in dynamical relations that science 
finds its truest and highest work, and it is here that 
the problem of science meets us in its sharpest out- 
line. The work of dynamical science is to study the 
relations of cause and effect. It traces backward and 
forward in endless succession the lines of causation. 
Behind every effect is a cause, but this cause is itself 
an effect with a cause standing behind it ; while every 
effect is also a cause producing other effects. These 
lines, then, are interminable. The grand problem of 
science is to make these lines converge and unite in 
one. Each science is complete so far as it brings its 
various forces under some common law and into some 
common relation. Science, in general, is complete 
so far as it unites all these separate systems into one 
common system, these separate forces into one common 
force. Towards this latter result the present genera- 
tion has taken a tremendous stride. The discovery 
of the great principle of the correlation of forces 
equals, if it does not surpass, in importance and 
grandeur any other discovery that ennobles the 
history of science. The discovery of the law of 
gravitation showed the identity in the forces at work 

27 



418 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



in this world and throughout the whole reach of tl 
starry universe. The discovery of the identity of the 
lightning with the electricity of the laboratory was 
another step in the invasion of the mysteries of the 
heavens. These are, above all others, startling to the 
imagination. But the discovery of the principle by 
which all the forces active about us are shown to be 
only various forms of one force is recognized by the 
understanding as a grander victory, inasmuch as the 
differences of kind which are united by this principle 
are more radical and essential than those of space to 
which the former discoveries referred. The principle 
of unity, the revelation of which is the great problem 
of science, seems to have been thus reached in one 
direction. The application of this discovery has, 
however, limits beyond which it cannot pass. The 
nature and fundamental qualities of matter in general, 
and of all its various forms in particular, lie outside 
of the succession of cause and effect. These are 
permanent, and the special results of causation depend 
upon these. Why, for instance, a certain physical 
arrangement produces within the eye the sensation of 
blue, w T hy one body is an acid and another an alkali, 
and why the two are so drawn together, — all of these 
questions relate to the inner world, which our laws 
of causation cannot reach, and across which the series 
of causes and effects play, as the ripples or the waves 
follow each other across the ocean. Our law T s of 
causation, then, are external and superficial. 

Further, there is a force at work in the universe 
which can never be brought into any system of 
correlation, or into any system of mere science. This 



the 



PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 419 

is the force which is behind and working through the 
progressive history of the world. Progress is the law 
of life and the law of history. It rests like the law 
of gravitation on a basis of strict induction, and like 
that holds itself aloof from our scientific generaliza- 
tions. As the principle of gravitation cannot as yet 
be brought to take its place among the correlated 
forces which form the brilliant system above referred 
to, so the principle of progress works through and by 
the means of these other forces, yet will not count 
itself among them. Indeed, the problem of science 
is to exclude as far as possible this principle of 
progress, and reduce all change to the relation of 
equivalents. Herbert Spencer has gone further than 
any other in this direction ; but yet what he has done 
shows most clearly the impossibility of completing 
the undertaking. Science must move in the direction 
towards which he points ; but the simplest phenomenon 
of organic growth, in which the law of growth over- 
rides and uses other force, is forever inexplicable on 
any principle of equivalents ; and this is a type of the 
progress in history and in the geologic ages, in which 
all special forces are the instruments of one overruling 
tendency. The theory of development and that of 
special creation are alike in this. As above stated, 
there is an infinite force working through, and in, 
nature and life. It is concealed like the ictus of the 
ivory balls, but reveals itself by results which cannot 
be accounted for by any arrangement of previous 
circumstances. This infinite force will forever escape 
our scientific formulas. These have to do with equa- 
tions and equivalents ; that is out of proportion with 



420 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

all other agencies. These others are but the condition s. j 
This works through them and springs from them. 

If, after these observations, we take a hasty glance 
at the relation of science to the grand organization 
which we call the universe, we meet the same relations 
as in the case of philosophy. There is the same 
advance, the same surpassing of limits, and the same 
stretching before, of what can never be fully gone 
over. Is science limited or not? At every step it is 
limited, yet these limitations are constantly giving 
way. The old limits pass, but new spring to fill 
their place. At every step there is victory. At 
every step the circle is complete. Yet at every step 
new obstacles challenge the advance, and a broader 
circle stretches beyoud, to be clasped by the un- 
wearied and unfolding reach of thought. 

THIRD. — PROBLEMS OF LIFE. 

What thought strives to comprehend, that life has 
to realize in a concrete form. Life, like philosophy 
and science, is progressive. Its problem is one that 
will never be so completely solved that its work will 
be accomplished. We meet the same two factors as 
before, the infinite and the finite. The struggle of life 
is to unite the two, to embody the infinite in finite 
forms. This is a problem which demands the united 
strength of the reason and the understanding. Here, 
also, victories are continually won ; but other victories 
yet more brilliant always remain to be achieved. 

The static problem of life, that is, how to embody 
life in enduring forms, is the one which from the 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. 421 

licoiire of the case is more insoluble than any other. 
It is so in regard to public affairs, because the move- 
ment of history is onward, and thus what seems 
stationary is only a temporary stage. The only 
permanent political forms or institutions are those 
which allow for this expansion, which admit of change 
without suffering thereby destruction. In regard to 
the individual, the static problem is no less impossible 
of solution. Here there is progress ; but the progress 
is followed by decay. So far as the outward is con- 
cerned, it is a rise and a fall with no pausing place. 

The dynamical problem is how to make the most 
of the vital force in the individual and in society. How 
to make the most of himself is the problem that meets 
every one. The answer varies in detail with regard 
to different individuals. It involves all questions of 
physical training and mental and moral education, 
and also of the personal government and the aims of 
life. In general it may be said, however, that to 
make the most of one's self, one should fall in with 
the grand movement of life and of history. By moving 
on the line with this, one has his puny efforts seconded 
by the infinite force, as when one sails down stream 
the force of the current itself bears him on. So far 
as society is concerned, it may be also remarked in 
general, that it is essential to this end that the 
development of the individual should be left free and 
unrepressed, and provided with what is essential for 
its start in the great movement. A glance at the 
great organic relations of society and of history shows 
us that this progressive movement is for the world at 
large inevitable. We speak of the logic of events. 



422 THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

This is the necessity that there is for one event to 
follow another. It makes no difference when or 
where a universal idea is given to the world, sooner 
or later some one will trace it to its particular and in- 
dividual results; as, on the other hand, all particular 
and individual facts will at some time find their 
generalization. The individual as we see him in this 
world is not long enough subjected to this logic of 
events to secure inevitably this result. On the con- 
trary, too many depart, the lesson of life unlearned. 
But the state sooner or later feels its full force. 

The static and dynamic problems of life, which 
admit of no satisfactory solution when viewed in their 
separateness, thus meet us united in organic relations, 
and here first may be properly understood and answered. 
This is seen in the case of the individual, first, by the 
fact that it is the final cause of any life, that is, the 
purpose for which one lives and the strength of this 
purpose, that determines its success or failure, and not 
any outward accomplishment or lack of accomplish- 
ment; and, secondly, that the individual life, as 
was intimated above, does not reach its full develop- 
ment when pursued merely as an individual life. It 
receives its complete strength only as a part of the 
great social organism to which it properly belongs. 
In this the partialness of each is complemented by 
that of others, and the imperfect success of each is made 
complete by the common triumph of all. And in the 
case of the state, the static problem is solved only by 
an organism that admits of growth and progress, by 
providing for, and adapting itself to, these necessary 
changes. When this is accomplished it need not 



FINAL CAUSES. 423 

timidly repress any of the forces of the life which it 
contains. On the contrary, it reaches its true end only 
when it develops and utilizes all these forces ; and falls 
short of this only when through ignorance or the 
repression of outward circumstances any part of its 
mass fails to partake of the common life. 

These problems of life, at which we have thus 
glanced, do not, however, properly belong to our sub- 
ject ; and for this reason they have been passed over so 
hastily. They adjoin it, they spring out of it, the}' 
form the transition between it and the outward world. 
They form the doorway through which, after having 
passed through the world of pure thought, and studied 
it in its manifold yet simple relations, we pass out 
into the concrete world of facts and tangible forms, 
bearing with us the result of our sojourn in the realm 
of pure thought, to be our help and our guide. 



NOTE TO "PROPOSITIONS OF PERCEPTION.'* 

(See Page 110.) 

I did not realize the full treatment which the "propositions 
of perception" required, until it was too late to introduce this 
into the body of the work. I there analyzed the outward senses 
upon which these propositions rest for their truth, but neglected 
to refer to the inward senses, which are hardly less important 
for this purpose. The recognition of any object or fact in the 
outer world is no more an act of simple perception than the rec- 
ognition of any internal thought or feeling. The logical impor- 
tance of this internal perception may be seen in the Cogito of 
Descartes ; and also in the controversy, that has sprung up of late 
years, in regard to the true method of the study of psychology. 

424 






APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



I. THE PROPOSITION. 

In the text it is stated that in all logical propositions 
the predicate is regarded as more extensive than the sub- 
ject. This is in accordance with the position of Hegel, 
who makes a distinction between a logical proposition 
and a simple statement of fact, or, as we should say, an 
individual proposition. I am inclined to think that this 
difference does not exist, and that in all propositions the 
subject is brought into relation with a class which in- 
cludes other members besides itself. Take as an example 
of an individual proposition the following : Philip was 
the father of Alexander. Both Philip and Alexander are 
individuals. Each is the centre of a group of character- 
istics and relations ; and it is possible that the two groups 
are equal in extent. In the proposition before us. how- 
ever, Philij) is considered as an individual, and as such is 
brought into relation with Alexander. He takes his 
place in the sphere which is made up of the relations and 
things that may be called Alexandrine. Or we may take 
a different view. The question may have been whether 
Philip were or were not childless. In this case, the prop- 
osition plases him in the general relation of fatherhood. 
It does not affect the result that these two universals, 
things Alexandrine and fatherhood, meet in a single 
person and indicate precisely the individual Philip. In 

427 



428 APPENDIX. 

real thinking our interest would be actually in one or the 
other of these universals. It would probably be in the 
enlargement of our thought of Philip through his sub- 
sumption under the things Alexandrine. The proposi- 
tion may be reversed. We may say Alexander was the 
son of Philip. Such a change cannot, however, take place 
without a change in the aspect of the thought. Alexan- 
der is now subsumed under things Philipine. It is the 
constant change of interest and emphasis that makes to 
a large extent the charm of even our most superficial 
thinking. It is a clumsy handling of such delicate rela- 
tions when we use the term Identical Proposition or 
Individual Propositions in such a way as to leave no 
place for this fine play of the changeful life of thought. 

No treatment could be clumsier in this respect than 
the attempt to reduce every proposition to an equation. 
This method, as applied by Jevons, may be a matter of 
practical convenience, but it is wholly contrary to the 
nature, of thought. It introduces a tautology which has 
no place in real thinking, and it makes of this artificial 
tautology the essential thing. We do not care to know, 
for instance, that John is a John Englishman ; we wish 
to know simply his nationality. We do not care to know 
that monkeys are monkeys quadrumana; our interest is 
only to know that they are quadrumana. 

II. THE SYLLOGISM. 

Me. F. H. Bradley, in his important and interesting 
work, " The Principles of Logic," argues with great force 
against the importance which logicians have been in the 
habit of giving to the syllogism. In view of this discus- 
sion, and of the general tendency to underrate this form 
of reasoning, it may be well to suggest certain considera- 



APPENDIX. 429 

tions in regard to it additional to those embodied in the 
text. The significance of the syllogism consists in the 
fact that nothing can be affirmed in any particular case 
which cannot be affirmed with truth in regard to all simi- 
lar cases. If an individual or a particular statement is 
made, the test of its truth is found in the question as to 
whether the statement is capable of a universal applica- 
tion. A consideration of the extent of its general truth 
furnishes the measure of its probable truth in this particu- 
lar case. The universal may stand to the particular or 
the individual statement in either of two relations. It 
may be external or accidental, in the sense that we know 
only by the results of an examination that the proposi- 
tion is generally true. The thought of a man would not 
suggest the idea of his mortality, unless, by experience 
and by the study of the past, we had learned to associate 
the idea of mortality with that of man. When we have 
thoroughly learned this, then the syllogistic form has 
become useless and is cast aside, except as it may be 
needed to teach some one who has not learned the lesson. 
The other form of the relation of the general truth to 
the particular statement is what we may call that of in- 
herence. It is seen intuitively as soon as the particular 
statement is made. When we say, If A is west of B, 
and B is west of C, then A is west of B, we see at the 
first glance that this is true. We do not separate in our 
thought the general truth that underlies the statement 
from the special application of it. This is what is called 
direct inference. The elements of the syllogism are 
there, but they have flowed together into an undivided, 
though not an indivisible unity. The syllogistic process 
begins and ends with such direct inference. The major 
and the minor premises involve such an inference and 
so does the conclusion. These direct inferences are 



430 APPENDIX. 

either of the originally intuitive form, or they represent 
some permanent result of previous thought or experience. 
The syllogism is thus implicit in all reasoning, although 
it is not necessary to make it explicit except in cases where 
there is some doubt as to the proof of a proposition. 






A garland fresh with flowers of song 
Would be an offering more meet 

For thine acceptance than these sheaves 
Of ripened, dry and heavy wheat, 

Which, bringing from the harvest field, 
I lay, beloved, at thy feet. 

I will not try with useless words 

To glorify this gift of mine. 
It were a hopeless task to prove 

The homely offering fit or line 
The truth is simply told: these sheaves 

Are all I have; I make them thine. 

But when I sought the harvest field, 
Thy careful love went forth with me, 

Supplied the strength I lacked, and wrought, 
Through the long hours, ungrudgingly; 

Even this poor gift I cannot give; 
I bring but what belongs to thee. 



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